“I was unusually nervous over this one.” (page 73)

[pnwmom]

According to the Gibson, Dunn whitewash of the Christie administration, so said David Wildstein, on September 18, 2013, in an email to Michael Drewniak, Gov. Christie’s Press Secretary. Drewniak had first forwarded him a WSJ article about the bridge lane closings with the comment, “Not so bad. At least it doesn’t run wild with that crazy allegation it was done as political retaliation. That was a nutty suggestion.”

And Wildstein replied, “I was unusually nervous over this one.”

Over. This. One.

Over this WHAT????

What other situations like this had Wildstein been involved in?

How come Drewniak didn’t ask him what he meant?

Either Drewniak, the Governor’s Press Secretary, knew very well what Wildstein meant, so he didn’t need to ask -- or he didn’t want to know.

In either case, the Gibson Dunn report just blithely skips along to the next point. Move along folks, there’s nothing to see . . . .

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/nj1015.com/files/2014/03/2014.03.27-REPORT-COPY-FOR-PRESS.pdf

[Squinch]

1. At first I didn't see what you saw, but YEAH! "What other situations like this had Wildstein

been involved in?"

[mercuryblues]

2. You are right

They didn't start with bridges. They did many smaller things first and built up to it.

[MADem]

3. Over this newspaper article. Maybe he'd had "dealings" with the reporter that weren't so

agreeable and was worried about getting a hatchet job.

I take "one" to mean newspaper article, not "incident."

[pnwmom]

5. But this would imply that he expected to have an article written

about the traffic jam in the Wall Street Journal, of all places.

Why would he anticipate that? Since when does the WSJ cover traffic jams?

[MADem]

6. WSJ covers all the news, not just the financial news--it has for many years, even before Murdoch

bought it.

Not surprising at all that WSJ covered that story. It's local enough and it involves a scandal that people were interested in reading about. EVERYONE was covering that story; just like today, everyone has an ACA story or two in their paper.

If you look at today's WSJ (and it will change if you see this page after Mar 31) there are at least stories about the ACA, Cyndi Lauper, The Dissing of Obama, Crisis in Russia, Corruption in China, New PM in France, prescription drugs, baseball, college basketball, and an article about waiting to become grandparents--and then some.

[pnwmom]

8. But it wasn't a scandal in the first article. No one knew then what was happening.

Just that there was a big traffic jam, and that it had something to do with a traffic study.

[MADem]

9. I'm betting that MANY people who work at the WSJ live in NJ and use that bridge to get to work.

From what I understand, the traffic jams were significant and out of the ordinary.

It's not "odd" for papers to cover them at all. It's not odd for TV stations to cover them, either.

Sample, different jam, different reason--Boston, this is the ABC outlet:

http://www.wcvb.com/news/lane-restrictions-planned-for-masspike-through-boston/25099408#!CdvT2

Los Angeles--NBC affiliate:

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Big-Rig-Hauling-42K-Pounds-of-Honey-Overturns-on-605-Freeway-252051651.html

It's everywhere, and it's reported on:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/europe/epic-traffic-grid.html#index

[malaise]

4. This - they've done it before

“Not so bad. At least it doesn’t run wild with that crazy allegation it was done as political retaliation. That was a nutty suggestion.”

And Wildstein replied, “I was unusually nervous over this one.”

Over. This. One.

Over this WHAT????

and they know it. Christie knew! It's his modus operandi.

[spanone]

7. k&r... a cesspool of corruption....