{"id":182976,"date":"2015-04-22T17:18:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T22:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/04\/22\/is-it-just-me-or-does-jabba-the-governor-seem-to-be-on-a-path-to-the-pokey\/"},"modified":"2015-04-22T17:18:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-22T22:18:00","slug":"is-it-just-me-or-does-jabba-the-governor-seem-to-be-on-a-path-to-the-pokey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/04\/22\/is-it-just-me-or-does-jabba-the-governor-seem-to-be-on-a-path-to-the-pokey\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it Just Me, or Does Jabba the Governor Seem to be on a Path to the Pokey?"},"content":{"rendered":"
The pattern of self dealing continues.<\/div>\n

This time it’s Chris Christie cutting a sweetheart deal for his brother’s law firm<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As one of its first moves in its state takeover of financially strapped Atlantic City, Chris Christie\u2019s administration has awarded a lucrative government contract to the financial services firm that employs the Republican governor\u2019s brother, Todd Christie. The deal followed an even bigger contract given to the firm by Christie officials only weeks after the governor\u2019s brother began working there. <\/p>\n

In January, Chris Christie signed an executive order<\/a> installing an emergency management team to develop \u201ca plan to place the finances of Atlantic City in stable condition on a long-term basis.\u201d Two months later, Reuters<\/a> obtained documents showing that Christie administration officials signed a contract with Ernst & Young, which hired<\/a> Todd Christie as a New Jersey-based director in March 2013. Todd Christie is listed as working on the firm\u2019s \u201cbusiness development\u201d in campaign finance records<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Christie administration contract will pay Ernst and Young more than $250,000 to provide financial analysis of Atlantic City. As the casino town faces a $101 million<\/a> deficit and hotel closures, the deal cemented by Christie\u2019s Department of Law also will allow Ernst & Young to bill taxpayers $455 per hour for other services, according to Reuters<\/a>. The Christie administration gave the contract to Todd Christie\u2019s firm at a time when New Jersey\u2019s executive branch ethics code<\/a> says that public officials may not use their positions \u201cto secure a job, contract, governmental approval or special benefit for yourself, a friend or family member.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope the governor\u2019s advocacy for the state takeover of Atlantic City was not simply to repay a favor to his brother, Todd Christie, for all of the support Todd has given him over the years,\u201d said Assemblyman John Wisniewski, the Democrat who co-chairs the legislature\u2019s investigative committee. \u201cIt is fair to ask questions any time you have the executive branch taking actions that at least on the surface appear to uniquely benefit somebody very close to the governor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The Christie administration\u2019s Atlantic City-related contract to Todd Christie\u2019s firm follows Todd Christie delivering more than $50,000 to the Republican Governors Association, which backed his brother\u2019s election campaigns. The governor\u2019s brother also delivered a maximum $3,800 contribution to his brother\u2019s reelection campaign after he started at Ernst & Young.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Todd Christie\u2019s business has intersected with the government business his brother oversees.<\/p>\n

Only weeks after Todd Christie started at Ernst & Young, Christie administration officials awarded the firm separate contracts worth more than $550,000 for auditing services in connection with the state\u2019s expenditures on Hurricane Sandy recovery. Ernst & Young has said Todd Christie was not involved in the deal, and noted that Ernst & Young is a large company with many employees.<\/p>\n

Todd Christie also was part of a group of investors who purchased and sold properties near public transit facilities that his brother\u2019s appointees redeveloped, according to the Bergen Record. At an event touting the redevelopment, the governor joked that his father was the \u201clobbyist in the Christie family for this project.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So totally not corrupt, right?<\/p>\n

This is not the sort of sh%$ that goes unnoticed in a Presidential race, even if it is business as usual in New Jersey, and even if Christie is a Republican.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pattern of self dealing continues. This time it’s Chris Christie cutting a sweetheart deal for his brother’s law firm: As one of its first moves in its state takeover of financially strapped Atlantic City, Chris Christie\u2019s administration has awarded a lucrative government contract to the financial services firm that employs the Republican governor\u2019s brother, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1005,970,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-corruption","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182976"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}