“Bridgegate” and What the Department of Justice has Time For

“Bridgegate” and What the Department of Justice has Time For

The story is not over in New Jersey, even after Governor Chris Christie’s apologetic press conference yesterday.

Also from yesterday, a Christie political appointee David Wildstein, took the Fifth in front of a New Jersey state assembly hearing on the George Washington Bridge traffic fiasco.  Wildstein’s name and comments are all over the email exchanges that were the proverbial “smoking gun” in this matter.

And on top of everything else, the US Attorney for New Jersey has announced that his office will be looking into “Bridgegate” as a criminal matter and to see if federal law was in any way broken.

Now, I am not denying that the optics are terrible for Governor Christie.  The truth might even be worse.  And the human element – the personal suffering of those stuck in that traffic, plus the story coming out that the response to an elderly lady’s emergency call was delayed by the traffic, which might have been a cause in her death later at the hospital – cannot be denied.  If he is truly innocent and had nothing to do with all of this, Christie is still left with both a political and optical nightmare to deal with.  If he had a hand in it, be prepared for all hell to break loose in New Jersey.

But New Jersey is just one state in 50.  Chris Christie is a governor, not president.  But considering the media coverage, you would think that Christie had gone after political opponents with the IRS and harassed them for months and months.  (My colleagues here at Victory Girls covered the breaking news yesterday about the IRS scandal and the DOJ’s investigation here and here.)

As the Wall Street Journal editorial board pointed out:

 … the U.S. Attorney is investigating the lane closures as a criminal matter. Well, that sure was fast, and nice of Eric Holder’s Justice Department to show its typical discretion when investigating political opponents.

This is the same Administration that won’t tell Congress what resources it is devoting to the IRS probe, and appears to be slow-rolling it. It has also doubled down by expanding the political vetting of 501(c)(4) groups seeking tax-exempt status. Lois Lerner, who ran the IRS tax-exempt shop and took the Fifth before Congress, was allowed to “retire,” presumably with a pension. Acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller resigned under pressure but no other heads have rolled. Yet compared to using the IRS against political opponents during an election campaign, closing traffic lanes for four days is jaywalking.

And blocking traffic for four days is nothing compared to blaming a YouTube video for the deaths of an American ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya for weeks on end, until the presidential election is safely over.  In fact, the news is breaking today that the State Department has finally decided to formally blame Ansar al-Sharia as responsible for the Benghazi attack on the embassy there, and declare them a “terror organization.”  That only took 15 months.  Ambassador Christopher Stevens is still unavailable for comment.  And the DOJ has continually blocked Congressional efforts to interview those who were in Libya on September 11, 2012.

The sad part is, we, the American public, have gotten used to the Department of Justice continually cherry-picking which cases it deems to be of supreme importance for them to get involved with.  It was clear from the very beginning of the Obama Administration that a Justice Department run by Eric Holder would end up being a political bludgeon.  I’m not sure I expected it to rise to Nixonian levels, but it has.

But how nice that they have the time to investigate if ANY federal laws were broken by an engineered traffic jam, especially with all that free time they have with not investigating the abuses at the IRS.  And how nice that we have a media who asks the hard questions, like David Gregory of NBC, who asks in a Tweet, “isn’t the burden for him (Christie) to prove he didn’t create an atmosphere where underlings thought this was okay?”

Too bad David Gregory never thought to ask that same question of Eric Holder or Barack Obama.

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4 Comments
  • GWB says:

    I’m not sure I expected it to rise to Nixonian levels, but it has.

    Oh, honey, we’re WAY beyond Nixonian levels. We’re nearing Henry II levels. Or maybe Daniel Ortega. We’re moving in the direction of Chavez or Castro levels. Let’s give Obama and Jarret their due here.

    • Deanna Fisher says:

      You’re right, GWB, Henry II is looking pretty comparable here.

      “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”
      “What do you mean, you killed him? Oops. You think I meant that?”

  • Fred says:

    Thank you for this salient post, we need to keep pointing out the non-stop Chicago thuggery emanating from Obama & Co. every time they do it.

    And we need to highlight their supinely devious toads in the fourth estate as well.

    Bastards.

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