TRENTON, N.J. — Republican Gov. Chris Christie has spent the past few days putting down traffic cones to separate himself from scandal.
The usually garrulous governor and possible 2016 presidential contender had avoided news conferences and interviews for more than two months until Thursday, the day a report he commissioned cleared him of any involvement in the politically motivated plot to create huge traffic jams at the George Washington Bridge last year.
With investigations by federal prosecutors and state lawmakers looming, Christie also submitted to an interview Thursday with Diane Sawyer on ABC and another that aired Friday night on Fox News.
And a vintage, defiant Christie re-emerged Friday at a Statehouse news conference in which he cracked jokes, jousted with reporters and acknowledged the toll of the scrutiny.
“There is no question this shakes your confidence,” he said. “If it doesn’t, you’re arrogant.” Christie defended the integrity of the taxpayer-funded report clearing him. It was produced by lawyers chosen by his office.
He boldly laid down a solid double line in the road.
“I think the report will stand the test of time,” he said, “and it will be tested by the other investigations that are going on.”
Democrats have blasted the findings as a whitewash and an incomplete piece of work, noting that the two Christie allies accused of engineering the traffic jams by ordering lane closings refused to cooperate with the lawyers.
But Christie said the lawyers would not “give away their reputations to do some kind of slipshod job for me.”
A lawyer for one of the aides who refused to be interviewed, former deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly, cast doubt on the credibility of the governor’s report, which concludes Kelly and a co-conspirator acted alone in shutting down traffic.
“The only credible investigation into the lane closings is being conducted by the U.S. attorney’s office,” Kelly lawyer Michael Critchley said.
Christie fired Kelly in January after learning she set the traffic scheme in motion with the message, “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
