Christie's crushed. Indictments expected soon in the bridge-gate scandal.
It has been falsely predicted many times in the last year, but now it seems to be true: The federal investigation into the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge appears to be coming to a head, with an announcement of indictments as early as next week.
SNIP
People close to the case say prosecutors are likely to bring charges based on a rarely used provision of a fraud statute, under which they would argue that Mr. Christie’s associates used the bridge, or the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs it, for a purpose other than its intended one. In the case of the bridge, the closings were apparently meant to punish Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee, a Democrat, after he declined to endorse the governor’s re-election bid in 2013.
What is less certain is whether prosecutors will find crimes in the other ways Mr. Christie used his powers in the service of political ambition. He used Port Authority money to fill holes in his budget; his lieutenants doled out flags and steel from the remnants of the World Trade Center to woo mayors whose endorsements they sought. An office of “intergovernmental affairs” worked to cultivate endorsements, all in the hopes that the governor could use a huge winning margin to argue that he was the Republican most likely to win the White House in 2016.
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Ms. Kelly, meanwhile, has been publicly silent for 15 months. But in a rare statement in May, her lawyer alluded to a wider network involved. “Anyone who thinks they are going to rewrite history and make Ms. Kelly a scapegoat,” he wrote, “is gravely mistaken.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/nyregion/indictments-may-be-near-in-george-washington-bridge-scandal.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
take one for the team. 
Love it! 
Looking forward to #200 and Volume 3 
after parsing through the article that is really based on "people close to the case". I really don't think it's either side. Everything in this article is based on things that have been released before. Even the use of the obscure statute is from a prior article back last year. (which was also based on "people close to the case"
This article is entirely a speculation or formulation based on that body of information. (and a reasonable one at that) The Samson resignation just brought everything to a head and makes it seem like everything is falling into place.
If I had to guess who those "people close to the case" were, I'd say it's probably either one or two people who were interviewed by the U.S. Attorney or some of the hooked-in lawyers who are commenting like television sports analysts to the reporter and don't want to go on record. Nobody wants to go on record until they're sure the king is going down. Retribution is one of Christie's strong suits.
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