Associated Press reports, “It was seven days into the trial in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing case when the government’s key witness dropped the bombshell: Gov. Chris Christie, he said, was told about the traffic jams while they were going on. Christie, David Wildstein told the jury last week, responded with a laugh and a joke about the role politics played. The accusation . . . immediately raised one question: Why wasn’t the Republican governor charged?” The wire service adds, “Former prosecutors say the answer is pretty simple. There’s nothing in that testimony that would be evidence to convict Christie of anything.”
NJ.com reports that the Bridgegate trial “has opened a rare window into the seamier side [of] New Jersey politics” that includes, among other things, “talk of virtual slush funds” and testimony about “the interstate rivalries that played out each day between the ‘New York side’ and the ‘New Jersey side’ at an agency with nearly $8 billion in assets, revenues and capital projects, while state public agencies were routinely misused for political considerations.”
NJ.com also recaps Wildstein’s end-of-the-week cross-examination testimony.