New Jersey governor Chris Christie has fired a senior aide in his office after emails and text messages showed that she sought to inflict traffic chaos on a town where a political opponent was mayor.
In an attempt to limit the political scandal engulfing his office, Mr Christie dismissed his deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly after emails showed she orchestrated lane closures on the George Washington Bridge in September as a revenge on the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee on the bridge's New Jersey side.
Mr Christie, tipped as a future Republican presidential candidate, apologised for Ms Kelly’s behaviour, which was revealed in communications released publicly on Wednesday.
They showed that Ms Kelly sought to inflict traffic gridlock on Fort Lee because the town's mayor, Mark Sokolich, would not endorse Mr Christie's re-election bid in the November election.
300,000 vehicles
An estimated 300,000 vehicles daily cross the bridge connecting Manhattan in New York City and Fort Lee in New Jersey. The four days of lane closures in September, at the start of the school year, caused havoc for motorists while emergency services were delayed attending medical situations.
“I am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team,” a contrite Mr Christie told reporters at a press conference. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the conduct that they exhibited is completely unacceptable and showed an inappropriate respect for the role of government.”
The controversy, the most gravest challenge in Mr Christie’s political career, shows little sign of abating as the US attorney’s office is expected to direct federal prosecutors to open an inquiry into the affair.
Mr Christie apologised for his staff, saying that Ms Kelly had lied and misled him. He said he would also meet Mr Sokolich to deliver a face-to-face apology to the Fort Lee mayor.
“I’m sick over this,” he told reporters, but added that the scandal was “the exception, not the rule”.
Mr Sokolich told the New York Daily News that the emails were "the worst example of a petty political vendetta".
The Democratic mayor told CNN that he feared further retribution and called for a criminal investigation. “Shame on you,” he said of those who sought vengeance against him.
The deepening scandal damages Mr Christie's presidential ambitions and raises questions about the culture set by the brash and outspoken nature of the governor among his staff and appointees.
Pugnacious character
Mr Christie defended his pugnacious character at the lengthy press conference saying that some may think his "direct blunt personality" is bullying, "but it's not that".
The Republican governor, who was re-elected in a landslide victory in November, said that he first learned of communications showing Ms Kelly’s involvement in the lane closures at 8.50am on Wednesday when he read the news reports on the emails and text messages on his iPad in his bedroom.
“I am heartbroken that someone who I permitted to be in [my] circle of trust for the last five years betrayed my trust,” the New Jersey governor said.
"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Ms Kerry emailed David Wildstein, a Christie appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, two weeks before the closures.
Mr Christie apologised for joking about the lane closures at a press conference in December when he sarcastically replied to a question saying: “I moved the cones, actually, unbeknownst to everybody.”
Another casualty of the bridge scandal is Mr Christie's two-time campaign manager and long-time aide Bill Stepien.
The governor said that he has instructed Mr Stepien, who described Mr Sokolich as "an idiot" in an email, to withdraw his candidacy to be the next chairman of the New Jersey Republican Party.
Mr Stepien has also lost a lucrative consulting contract with the Republican Governors’ Association, the party’s influential national organisation where Mr Christie took over as chairman in November.
Meanwhile, at a New Jersey legislature hearing into the lane closures, Mr Wildstein took the fifth amendment, refusing to answer questions about the affair on the basis that he might incriminate himself. The New Jersey General Assembly’s transportation committee voted to hold him in contempt for refusing to answer questions.
