WASHINGTON – Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani defended the internal Bridgegate report Sunday and its detour into the steamy romantic relationship between two Chris Christie aides.
“The mention of it … seemed relevant to the fact that these two people might not be communicating,” Giuliani said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Guiliani, a former federal prosecutor, said that if he had conducted the investigation, he also would have included facts about the love affair between former Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly and former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien, both key players in the scandal.
“If they didn’t explain why they weren’t communicating then people who want to gratuitously criticize the report would say, ‘Why wouldn’t they be communicating. They are very well known to each other,’” he said.
“I’d have to give an explanation for that or otherwise [the media] would start attacking me,” said Giuliani.
Giuliani, a staunch supporter of Christie, also defended the report’s conclusion that the governor did not order the lane closures or know the about the political-payback scheme beforehand.
“I think this is pretty strong report. It’s not conclusive. No one claims it is. But it’s a good step in the right direction,” he said.
The scandal has cast a shadow over Christie’s once bright political future and jeopardized a potential run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.
The report by Randy Mastro and his firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher cost New Jersey taxpayers $1 million, and the findings have been viewed with suspicion because Christie himself commissioned the investigation of his role in the scandal.
Giuliani stressed that Mastro, who served as Giuliani’s deputy mayor, was a Democrat and a fearless investigator who once “took on the Mafia under threat of death.”
The former mayor insisted Mastro wouldn’t participate in a “whitewash.”
Mastro also defended his investigation.
“We had no incentive to do anything other than to get to the truth,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“For the skeptics out there, there are some who have a visceral reaction to this bridge controversy,” he continued. “It reminds me of the movie line, ‘They can’t handle the truth.’ We believe we got to the truth.”
Giuliani conceded that the report was not a “complete investigation” because it lacked interviews with five key figures involved in the scandal, including Kelly and Stepien.
“So far, no one has gotten to interview those people, including the joint committee,” he said, referring to the probe by the New Jersey legislature. “So this report has gone as far as anyone can go.”
He said it still contains “some very valuable information.”
The report raised eyebrows for detailing the “personal relationship” between Kelly and Stepien.
“Kelly and Stepien became personally involved, although, by early August 2013, their personal relationship had cooled, apparently at Stepien’s choice, and they largely stopped speaking,” the report said.
It indicated that he “cooling” of the relationship may have “had some bearing on her subjective motivations and state of mind” when she ordered the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge allegedly to cause traffic jams as a political payback against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee.
Kelly’s lawyer, Michael Critchley, called the personal information in the report “venomous, gratuitous, and inappropriate sexist remarks.”
New Jersey state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), a leader of the joint legislative committee investigating the Brdigegate lane closures, agreed.
“How do they know who broke up a relationship,” she said on the same show as Giuliani. “That gratuitous, sexist language in that report is infuriating and anyone who put their name on that report should be ashamed of themselves.”