The weekend’s terrorist attacks in New York and New Jersey were fortuitously timed for Garden State governor Chris Christie: Not only did he get to project steely determination in a sudden crisis; the jihad diverted attention from the explosive start of the Bridgegate trial. Opening to the New Jersey jury in the case against two of Christie’s most trusted (but now former) aides, a federal prosecutor argued that the governor knew about the 2013 lane shutdown at the George Washington Bridge while it was happening.
This contradicts Christie’s years of indignant (albeit likely false) insistence to the contrary. It also raises a question for the Obama Justice Department: If the governor knew of the partisan, retaliatory shenanigans being executed by his underlings, for his political benefit, and under circumstances in which he had the power to put a stop to them forthwith, why wasn’t he indicted along with his aides?
As readers of these columns know, I am not a Christie fan. In addition, I’ve found his claims of innocence in the Bridgegate scandal implausible from the start — based on both the circumstances and the governor’s economical approach to the truth when it comes to any of his administration’s foibles. Nevertheless, my many years as a prosecutor lead me to cut the governor some slack here, at least until we see the actual evidence.
In conspiracy cases, it is a commonplace for both defendants on trial and the prosecutor to take liberties in heaping blame on the dead and the missing — i.e., those who, though participants in the relevant events, are not present in court as defendants (e.g., fugitives, defendants whose cases are pending, and apparent participants whom the government has chosen not to charge, for reasons that can range from the obvious to the dubious). Political-corruption cases are no exception.
The dynamic is easy to understand. Piling ostensibly damning evidence on an uncharged person is a lay-up for the prosecutor. Since he is absent from the defense table, an uncharged man has no nettlesome lawyer fighting on his behalf to suppress the government’s evidence or at least minimize its impact. And while the defendants on trial may be damaged derivatively by that evidence (otherwise the prosecutor would not be offering it), they will not want to be perceived by the jury as taking on the defense of the uncharged person, so they don’t put up much of a fight. After all, the defendants on trial will inevitably seek to shift blame to the missing, uncharged person as well — to argue to the jury that the defendant is being scapegoated in order to protect some powerful missing person, or to obscure the prosecution’s investigative missteps that allowed the “real” culprit to slip the noose.
Since both sides of the case have motives to exaggerate the culpability of the missing, uncharged person, the lawyers’ opening comments have to be viewed with some skepticism. Rather than jumping to conclusions, it is better to wait for the witnesses’ testimony — to ask whether it is supported or contradicted by the paper trail of e-mails, sundry documents, and investigative reports.