Gov. Chris Christie has been adamant that he knew nothing about the Bridgegate scandal when it rocked his world and caused massive traffic problems for New Jersey residents.
As many of his top aides have plead guilty or are still facing charges, he went to the RNC Convention a few weeks ago and held a mock trial against Hillary Clinton. Gov. Christie went on at length and finally attacked her over her email server debacle.
Unfortunately for the governor, text messages have a long life too.
And now he's facing some heat of his own.
In the message, sent during a press conference Christie gave on the topic of the bridge closures in December 2013, Christina Genovese Renna, identified in court documents as Christina Genovese, told a campaign staffer that Christie "flat out lied" about his staff's involvement in the scandal.
The text messages is one of a group that surfaced Wednesday in a court filing by attorneys for Bill Baroni, an appointee to the Port Authority who along with former Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly is fighting off charges related to lane closures on the George Washington Bridge that were allegedly ordered as political retribution.
Are you listening? He just flat out lied about senior staff and Stepien not being involved," Renna texted in response to Christie telling reporters he had "absolutely no reason to believe" that senior staff, including top aide Bill Stepien, acted on his behalf with the closures.
"Gov is doing fine. Holding his own up there," Sheridan texted back on Dec. 13, 2013.
"Yes. But he lied," Renna texted. "And if emails are found with the subpoena or ccfg emails are uncovered in discovery if it comes to that it could be bad."
Christie responded like he usually does, "I absolutely dispute it. It's ridiculous. It's nothing new."
On the contrary, it's very new. A former Christie staffer texted that the governor was lying in a press conference while he was giving it.
With me now, lock him up, lock him up, lock him up!
Sam Seder discusses this new information and the entire Bridgegate scandal in The Majority Report.
