Page 30 - Traffic Study News Today

Put him in a well-paid job as deputy general counsel of the port authority. the port authority has a bunch of people who work in the general counsels office as deputy general counsels and assistant general counsels. they have a ton of lawyers at the port authority, but for whatever reason, it was this one, phil kwon who personally did the prep work for this testimony you see here. phil kwon is in the green tie. this is late november. this is bill baroni who since resigned from the port authority...

Testimony to the legislature about the george washington bridge. last november when bill baroni climbed a traffic study was the reason for those lane closures. the super committee also voted today to enforce the subpoenas already injured to bridget kelly and former christie campaign manager bill stepien. they both refused to comply with the subpoena, citing the fifth amendment. >> our attorneys supplied the entire committee last week -- yeah, friday, with a complete background on those constitut...

Story about a traffic study? some of that sham cover story was planned in advance of the lanes being shut down. and some of it may have happened after the fact. in either case, who was in on the cover-up? but one contribution the beltway press is making to this issue, which admittedly you maybe cant see all that clearly if you focused on the proverbial crime and cover-up here rather than chris christie. the third question the beltway press is raising is a totally dig different matter altogether,...

Wildsteins credibility landed with a thud. it was a striking and deeply personal broadside coming from a chief executive of a state and even his allies called it a mistake. but one important person hadnt seen the missive ahead of time. the governor, himself. christies aides did not run the document which took the extraordinary step of highlighting incidents from wildsteins high school days. they did not run the document by the governor before they sent it out. according to two people familiar wi...

Matters are now settled or do they continue to evolve? i know at the "record" youve been trying to track the evolution of his statements. do you get the sense weve now got a firm timeline from him? >> we do have firm dates on certain aspects of this. i think its going to move forward. to me, there are three fundamental questions. whether he knew before the lanes were closed. theres the question of when he learned about the lane closures. theres the question of when he learned there could be some...

Happening. so it seems a very sensitive moment in the project. >> youve got four people that have lost their jobs over this or had ties severed. bill stepien, former campaign manager. bridget anne kelly, deputy chief of staff. youve got david wildstein who had a sort of nondescript job at the port authority as the eyes and ears of christie and baroni. wildstein turned over documents, basically says ill talk if you give me immunity. bill baroni hasnt said much, havent heard from him since he ga...

The financing was being locked up right as these closures were happening. so it seems a very sensitive moment in the project. >> youve got four people that have lost their jobs over this or had ties severed. bill stepien, former campaign manager. bridget anne kelly, deputy chief of staff. youve got david wildstein who had a sort of nondescript job at the port authority as the eyes and ears of christie and baroni. wildstein turned over documents, basically says ill talk if you give me immunity. b...

Have been the target of an attempt to sort of hijack this development. you know, was it an attempt to shake down the developers? theres two developers involved. multiple financiers. theres the mayor. we know this development could have been put at risk by traffic. >> one of the things i think thats been under-appreciated here is that the so-called traffic study that was only shut down because the head of the port authority appointed by andrew cuomo on the new york side, patrick foye, shut it dow...

The name should ring a bell. baroni ordered "there be no public discourse" over what went down in the wake of the lane closures. he testified in november about the lane closures ostensibly being part of a traffic study. he is also crucially and importantly one of the people involved in the scandal who is turning over documents and not pleading the fifth. joining me now is the "talking points memo" rot reporter, hunter walker. what are you trying to find out here? >> as you said before, we dont k...

So one of the most significant things in this document was it shows that meeting between sokolich and baroni which "a" sort of gives the lie to the traffic study explanation. >> yes. exactly. there was a traffic study. he knew exactly what the situation was. >> the meeting they had was talking about strategies to reduce traffic. >> right. >> so what sokolich told me is, you know, you look at the discussion we had, and theres no way he could have thought that shutting those lanes would be anyth...