New GWB files, same callous jokes

Click here to read the emails (PDF)

The private messages that linked Governor Christie 's office to lane closures at the George Washington Bridge also contain jokes about causing 'traffic problems' at the home of a New Jersey rabbi associated with the Port Authority, newly released documents show.

The information is contained in 20 pages of messages that previously had redactions shielding who sent and received texts between former Port Authority executive David Wildstein and others. The documents do not shed any new light on potential further involvement of the governor's office.

Full coverage: Chris Christie and the GWB lane closure controversy

The texts - exchanged between Wildstein and Christie's former deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly - include snarky jokes aimed at a Port Authority police chaplain, including the jibes about causing traffic jams on his street and delaying international flights to Israel.

The texts occurred six days after Kelly sent to Wildstein her now-infamous email, 'Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,' setting off more than four days of gridlock in the borough in mid-September.

In the texts about the chaplain, Wildstein sent Kelly a picture of Rabbi Mendy Carlebach, later writing: 'And he has officially pissed me off.'

'Clearly,' Kelly responded on Aug. 19.

'We cannot cause traffic problems in front of his house, can we?' Kelly wrote.

'Flights to Tel Aviv all mysteriously delayed,' wrote Wildstein, an executive at the bi-state agency that controls the region's airports.

'Perfect,' Kelly wrote.

It's not clear why Wildstein was angry with Carlebach. But the messages echoed comments, already made public, about the Fort Lee mayor that led to speculation that the lane closures were retaliation against the Democratic mayor for not endorsing Christie for reelection.

Other information disclosed on Thursday showed that in November, Christie's top Port Authority executive, Bill Baroni, worried that he and Wildstein would be fired. They were not; they resigned in December before the controversy escalated and received praise from Christie on the way out. New passages in the documents also reveal early efforts to keep at bay two Democratic state legislators who were demanding answers about the lane closures.

Carlebach, a Middlesex County rabbi, said he was surprised and baffled when told about the passages. He said he has never spoken to Wildstein and had only exchanged pleasantries with Kelly at the State House in Trenton. He is a member of the state's Homeland Security Interfaith Advisory Council and was a chaplain at the 2004 and 2008 Republican National Conventions.

'I have totally no idea,' he said when asked why he might be the subject of the text messages between Wildstein and Kelly. 'I don't understand it. ... None of it makes any sense.'

He knows Kelly 'from the State House' but said the extent of their conversations was 'hello' and 'good morning' greetings as they passed one another in the hallways. He saw Wildstein at Port Authority meetings but 'never engaged him,' he said.

In the photo Wildstein forwarded to Kelly before they exchanged messages about the rabbi, Carlebach is posing next to U.S. House Speaker John Boehner. It's not clear when the photo was taken or why Wildstein was sending it.

'I think this qualifies as some sort of stalking,' Kelly wrote to Wildstein in response to the photo, adding, 'You are too much.'

Wildstein replied: 'He is the Jewish Cid Wilson,' an apparent reference to a Leonia resident and Bergen Community College trustee who is active in politics and community organizations.

Wilson said he never met Wildstein and was 'deeply appalled and offended' that his name came up in the texts.

But, he said, when Wildstein was an anonymous blogger, he once poked fun at Wilson for having celebrity Facebook friends.

Wilson was mentioned in a headline for a 2009 story on the PolitickerNJ website run by Wildstein, about Giants players appearing at a Passaic County political fundraiser: 'It's a perfect chance for Cid Wilson to start a new photo album: 'me with famous football players.'Ÿ'

Wilson said that the reference 'seemed odd' to him at the time because he wasn't even planning to attend the event. He said he was 'stunned' that Wildstein made another reference to him last year.

'I didn't think he knew me that well,' Wilson said. 'I didn't think that he cared. ... It's a testament to his negative character. I think he's deeply troubled. It goes to show how deranged he is to make comments about people he's never met.'

Wildstein's attorney did not respond to request for comment.

In the months after the lane closures, the documents show, Wildstein and others tried to stem the fallout. On Nov. 12, the day before a Port Authority commissioners' meeting, Wildstein got a message from Baroni. 'Are we being fired?' Baroni asked Wildstein at 7:24 p.m. There was no response that night.

At the meeting the next day, Wildstein and Baroni discussed keeping state Sen. Loretta Weinberg and Assemblyman John Wisniewski, the two Democrats now leading the investigation, from attending a question-and-answer session with reporters. Weinberg and Wisniewski appeared at the meeting to confront commissioners about the lane closures.

'Do we let Weinberg and Wiz attend? Can we stop them?' Wildstein wrote.

'How do we stop them? It just creates an issue,' Baroni replied.

'I don't see how but need to ask you,' Wildstein wrote.

'Yeah they will beat us up either way,' Baroni responded.

The 20 documents also identified for the first time those who sent explosive text messages that had already been released.

Kelly was identified as the person who wrote 'Is it wrong that I'm smiling?' after being told the Fort Lee mayor complained about delayed school buses and traffic congestion. 'I feel badly about the kids,' she wrote, 'I guess.'

'They are the children of Buono voters,' Wildstein responded, referring to Barbara Buono, Christie's Democratic challenger in the gubernatorial election.

Those passages had already been reported, but the identities of who sent and received the messages were not clear from the documents turned over by Wildstein in response to legislative subpoenas. The legislative committee that issued the subpoenas asked Wildstein's attorney to remove redactions from the documents and to identify the participants in some of the discussions. Wildstein's attorney did that.

Some redactions remain, likely because the information was deemed not relevant to the committee's investigation.

The new messages also show that a Port Authority police officer, Lt. Chip Michaels, was giving reports to Wildstein about the traffic backups in Fort Lee during the lane closures, which ran from Sept. 9 to 13. Michaels, the documents indicate, chauffeured Wildstein to observe the traffic jams on the first morning of the lane closures.

'Local ft lee traffic disaster,' Michaels wrote to Wildstein at 8:39 p.m. on Sept. 10, the second day of the lane closures.

Michaels and his brother were childhood friends of Christie, and like Wildstein, they all grew up in Livingston.

A message released for the first time also shows that Bill Stepien, Christie's former campaign manager, wrote to Wildstein on Oct. 1 in an apparent reference to Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye after an internal agency email was leaked to the press. Foye, who was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, reversed the lane closures in the email and called them abusive and potentially illegal.

'Holy [expletive], who does he think he is, Capt. America?' Stepien wrote to Wildstein on the same day the email surfaced publicly.

'Bad guy,' Wildstein replied. 'Welcome to our world.'

Christie cut ties with Stepien last month after the first round of emails was released, saying he was 'disturbed' by Stepien's 'tone' in emails where he calls the Fort Lee mayor an 'idiot.'

Two days after Stepien's exchange with Wildstein in October, Kelly sent a text message to Wildstein making an apparent reference to a quote by Mark Sokolich, Fort Lee 's mayor. Sokolich told The Record in a story published that day that perhaps someone at the Port Authority simply made a 'dumb mistake' by closing the lanes. He previously told The Record that he wondered whether he was being sent a message because he had done something wrong. He has since said that had ignored requests to endorse Christie's reelection bid.

'Dumb mistake,' Kelly wrote on Oct. 3, the day the story was published. Wildstein, apparently confused by the message, responded with question marks.

'Today's article,' she wrote, adding later: 'Sokolich said it.'

Email: boburg@northjersey.com and koloff@northjersey.com.