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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMitt Romney has been vindicated by this administration's corruption and lawlessness
http://swampland.time.com/2013/11/02/the-hunt-for-pufferfish/[Christie] was also a fundraising dynamo, but he and his staff were overbearing and hard to work with, demanding in ways that would have been unthinkable from any other surrogate. Months earlier, Christie had banned Romney from raising money in New Jersey until Christie had given the O.K. to do soa move Romney found galling, like something out of The Sopranos. Are you kidding me, Mitt thought. Hes going to do that? There were plenty of New Jersey donors whod given money to Mitt in 2008; now Christie was trying to impose a gag order on talking to them? He sounds like the biggest asshole in the world, Stevens griped to his partner, Russ Shriefer. More recently, Trenton insisted on private jets, lavish spreads of food, space for a massive entourage. Romney ally Wayne Berman looked at the bubble around Christie and thought, Hes not the President of the United States, you know.
The list of questions Myers and her team had for Christie was extensive and troubling. More than once, Myers reported back that Trentons response was, in effect, Why do we need to give you that piece of information? Myers told her team, We have to assume if theyre not answering, its because the answer is bad.
The vetters were stunned by the garish controversies lurking in the shadows of his record. There was a 2010 Department of Justice inspector generals investigation of Christies spending patterns in his job prior to the governorship, which criticized him for being the U.S. attorney who most often exceeded the government [travel expense] rate without adequate justification and for offering insufficient, inaccurate, or no justification for stays at swank hotels like the Four Seasons. There was the fact that Christie worked as a lobbyist on behalf of the Securities Industry Association at a time when Bernie Madoff was a senior SIA officialand sought an exemption from New Jerseys Consumer Fraud Act. There was Christies decision to steer hefty government contracts to donors and political allies like former Attorney General John Ashcroft, which sparked a congressional hearing. There was a defamation lawsuit brought against Christie arising out of his successful 1994 run to oust an incumbent in a local Garden State race. Then there was Todd Christie, the Governors brother, who in 2008 agreed to a settlement of civil charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission in which he acknowledged making hundreds of trades in which customers had been systematically overcharged. (Todd also oversaw a family foundation whose activities and purpose raised eyebrows among the vetters.) And all that was on top of a litany of glaring matters that sparked concern on Myers team: Christies other lobbying clients, his investments overseas, the YouTube clips that helped make him a star but might call into doubt his presidential temperament, and the status of his health.
Ted Newton, managing Project Goldfish under Myers, had come into the vet liking Christie for his brashness and straight talk. Now, surveying the sum and substance of what the team was finding, Newton told his colleagues, If Christie had been in the nomination fight against us, we would have destroyed himhe wouldnt be able to run for governor again. When you look below the surface, Newton said, its not pretty.
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Mitt Romney has been vindicated by this administration's corruption and lawlessness (Original Post)
geek tragedy
Jan 2014
OP
grasswire
(50,130 posts)1. Christie has never been vetted on a national scale.
Many people say he's got lots of dirt out there. May it be so.
temporary311
(955 posts)4. Certainly hope the dirt sticks.
I dread the thought of President Christie in charge of the NSA. Dude can't even resist abusing his power over traffic lights.
Larkspur
(12,804 posts)2. Christie is "Tricky Dick Jr."
We need to brand him as "Nixon Little" and "Tricky Dick Jr.".
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)3. I think Tony Soprano comments are much more appropriate. nt