The Report Chris Christie Bought to Clear Himself Will Cost Taxpayers More Than $1 Mil

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The law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher charged Republican Governor Chris Christie’s office $1.1 million for the short time frame between Jan. 12 to Jan. 31 to look into the lane closures on the GWB and the distribution of Sandy aid.

This is the firm that Christie hired to “investigate” him, and on March 27th, they cleared the guy who hired them, shocking no one. It costs a lot of money to get lawyers to clear a Governor ahead of actual investigations, apparently.

Michael Linhorst and Michael Phillips at The Record/North Jersey.Com reported that the Governor’s office had been billed nearly $1.1 million by the law firm for less than three weeks work. Furthermore, taxpayers will most certainly be on the hook for a lot more than that, “The final amount that taxpayers will ultimately pay Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, which concluded that Christie did not have knowledge of the lane closure scheme, will certainly be higher.”

The billing statements are “heavily redacted” and “show multiple attorneys working on what appear to be similar tasks that are described in vague language.”

“In all, six attorneys billed for more than $50,000, and 14 others billed more than $20,000.”

Furthermore, “‘Training’ is mentioned 17 times in the bills, most often in the context ‘document review training,’ although no explanation is given.”

The Record notes that it’s odd that the law firm started charging four days before Chris Christie announced that he’d hired them. The bill for January was not submitted until May 1, in spite of an agreement that clearly states that the firm must submit monthly bills.

This law firm donated $10,000 to Republicans and $0 to Democrats. In fact, they donated it to the Christie headed Republican Governors Association, so objectivity is not a Christie value when it comes to investigating himself. As if you thought otherwise. Nope, Christie hired the most biased firm he could find – one with something at stake financially.

The feds have a criminal probe into the Governor’s involvement in the bridge closure. This means there will be plenty of more legal fees for the taxpayers to pick up to defend their Governor. The legal fees will keep coming from the law firm that donated to the RGA, as this $1.1 million only represents three weeks in January and the “findings” weren’t released until March 27, and yet the bill was not submitted until May 1. The feds might want to peek at those billing redactions. Just saying.

This tab is brought to you by the “law and order” Republican party of “fiscal conservatives”. Christie, who was responsible for 6,000 layoffs in New Jersey schools due to backing a budget cut of $1.3 billion with minimum support from legislative Dems, seems to have no problem finding endless money for his own defense. Back then, to the cheers of conservatives, the NYT wrote Christie claimed that his goal of his cuts was “to get government the hell out of your way and the hell out of your pocket.”

I guess it’s okay with Republicans for the government to be in your pocket when that government pays Chris Christie’s law firm to clear him.

Sarah Jones

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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

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