TRENTON, NJ — Lawyers for two disgraced Chris Christie aides tied to the George Washington Bridge scandal spent four hours telling a judge Tuesday they shouldn’t have to cough up potentially incriminating communications.
Bridget Anne Kelly, the New Jersey governor’s fired deputy chief of staff, and Bill Stepien, once Christie’s campaign manager, want Judge Mary Jacobson to quash subpoenas from state lawmakers probing the week of bridge closures in Fort Lee last September.
They argued that turning over any communications would violate their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
Kelly and Stepien were not required to attend Tuesday’s hearing, but Kelly showed up anyway at the Mercer County courthouse in Trenton.
Wearing a pink coat, she choked back tears outside court and said she’s a single mother of four struggling to get by without a job.
“She’s here because her life has been affected dramatically,” Kelly’s lawyer, Michael Critchley, said. “She is not running away, living the life of a hermit.”
It was a far different Kelly on Tuesday than the cocksure aide who joked in text messages about making kids late for school.
“Is it wrong that I’m smiling?” Kelly wrote in a Sept. 10 text message to former Port Authority official David Wildstein.
Kelly wrote the scandal’s most incriminating e-mail, telling Wildstein that it was “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” apparently setting the scheme into motion.
State lawmakers now want Kelly and Stepien to turn over all of their correspondence relating to the scandal that threatens Christie’s political future.
Judge Jacobson said she will rule by the end of the month.
With Post Wire Services