Supreme Court Reverses Bridgegate Convictions: "Not Every Corrupt Act Is A Federal Crime"

The Supreme Court has decided to reverse the fraud convictions of two aides to former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who played key roles in the Bridgegate scandal, the incident involving the politically-motivated shutdown of traffic lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge in 2013.

“But not every corrupt act by state or local officials is a federal crime," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the unanimous decision. "Because the scheme here did not aim to obtain money or property, Baroni and Kelly could not have violated the federal-program fraud or wire fraud laws.”

At the time of the scandal, Bridget Anne Kelly was deputy chief of staff to Christie, and Bill Baroni was appointed to be deputy executive of the Port Authority by Christie. They were convicted in 2016.
Listen to Matt Katz and Andrea Bernstein discuss the decision on WNYC:

The 2013 scandal began as Christie was cruising to reelection, hoping to win Democratic endorsements as a Republican governor with a plan to run a bipartisan campaign for president in 2016. David Wildstein, a Christie-appointed hire in the Port Authority, and Kelly emailed each other about shutting down a lane in September, under the guise of a Port Authority traffic study. On September 9th, 2013, Kelly infamously emailed Wildstein, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

The lane and toll booth reductions occurred at the start of the first day of the school year without any advance notice to Fort Lee officials, including its Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich. Sokolich emailed the governor's office for help with the traffic issues at the time, but he was initially ignored. One commuter told the Bergen Record, before it was revealed the lanes were deliberately shut down, that, "Other than after the 9/11 attacks, I've never seen such a fiasco of delays at the inbound, upper-level part of the bridge."

School buses and emergency vehicles were gridlocked on the bridge every morning for four consecutive days. When Patrick Foye, who was the Governor Andrew Cuomo-appointed Port Authority executive director at the time, demanded they be reopened, Wildstein claimed a traffic study—"Reallocation of Toll Lanes at GWB"—was being conducted.

Christie was never charged with a crime, but testimony at trial indicated that he was aware of the lane closures from at least the time they began on the first day.

Baroni was sentenced to 18 months in prison and served two months before the Supreme Court surprised legal experts and decided last June to review the case. He was then released, pending today’s decision. Kelly, who spoke to Gothamist/WNYC about the saga last year while out on bail, was about to begin her 13-month prison sentence when the court intervened. A mother of four, her ex-husband was planning to move into her house to watch the kids while she was away.

Kelly, who has struggled finding employment since Christie fired her when the scandal broke, released an emotional statement Thursday. “Today, the Court gave me back my name and began to reverse the six-and-a-half-year nightmare that has become my life,” she said. “Having been maligned, I now stand with my family and friends knowing that due process worked.” She then made a not-so-subtle reference to Christie himself: “While this may finally have made this case right for me, it does not absolve those who should have truly been held accountable.”

Christie himself put out a blistering statement going after Paul Fishman, the U.S. Attorney of New Jersey appointed by President Obama who brought the Bridgegate case in 2015. Christie is a former U.S. Attorney, and he was in the audience for the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on the case in January. He alleged that Fishman engaged in “prosecutorial misconduct and personal vindictiveness,” and said that he was “motivated by political partisanship and blind ambition that cost taxpayers millions in legal fees and changed the course of history.”

The “changed the course of history” line appears to be a reference to Christie’s presidential ambitions. He has blamed Bridgegate for derailing both his 2016 presidential run and shot at becoming Trump’s running mate. If he tries to run for president in 2024, as he is expected to do, he will likely seek to shrug off the Bridgegate scandal with similar rhetoric blaming Obama-era partisan prosecutors.

Fishman responded with a fiery statement, referencing his successful extortion conviction of David Samson, one of Christie’s closest allies and the former chairman of the Port Authority who was caught in a shakedown scheme to get United Airlines to create a flight route to his summer home in South Carolina.

“It is stunning, but perhaps not surprising, that Chris Christie’s response is to concoct accusations of political ambition, partisanship, and personal vindictiveness,” Fishman said. He then quoted from Kagan’s decision, saying: “Chris Christie may try to rewrite his legacy—and he may want to rewrite history—but the fact remains that the ‘deception, corruption and abuse of power’ was committed for precisely those reasons by his team on his watch.”

Trump got into the mix after the Supreme Court decision, too. Even though his Justice Department fought the case all the way to the Supreme Court—and even though in 2015 he told a national audience that Christie “totally knew” about the scheme to close the lanes—Trump called the prosecution a “scam” on Twitter.

One of Christie’s Bridgegate lawyers was Christopher Wray, who is now the director of the FBI. Wray billed state taxpayers $2 million for his services.

Just one player in the Bridgegate saga expressed remorse in the aftermath of the court’s decision: Wildstein, whose conviction, unless he seeks to have it expunged, still stands. He pleaded guilty but avoided prison time by testifying against Baroni and Kelly. The former political operative is now a New Jersey political journalist running a news site, New Jersey Globe. He told NBC4: “This is not a vindication. My apologies stand, my remorse continues, and I fully accept responsibility for my role.”

Legal experts say the decision will have a chilling effect on future corruption cases, but are divided on how far-reaching that will be. In 2016, the Supreme Court overturned a case against the former Virginia governor, Bob McDonnell, who accepted $175,000 in gifts from a lobbyist. That case was believed to significantly dampen prosecutorial zeal for bringing corruption cases. Now, Bridgegate could narrow the aperture still further for “abuse-of-power related actions like this one,” according to legal expert Emily Bazelon, a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine and a lecturer at Yale Law School.

“For example, the decision leaves the punishment for a governor who took revenge against a mayor he or she didn’t like, by doing something that hurts the city, to the political process," Bazelon said.

It also leaves such punishments to state prosecutors. Thursday’s ruling opens the possibility that the Bridgegate players could get charged with state crimes. During the Christie Administration, the governor’s appointed attorney generals never even investigated the affair. But with a Democratic-appointed state attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, now in office, official misconduct charges could be filed before September, when the statute of limitations expires. A spokeswoman for Grewal had no comment.

Indeed, the decision seems to kick the matter to the states or Congress to criminalize such behavior. In her decision, Kagan said that the evidence “no doubt shows wrongdoing—deception, corruption, abuse of power,” but “the federal fraud statutes at issue do not criminalize all such conduct. Under settled precedent, the officials could violate those laws only if an object of their dishonesty was to obtain the Port Authority’s money or property.”

But Kelly and Baroni did not seek to enrich themselves. The scheme, prosecutors alleged, was intended only to elevate the political standing of their boss, Christie.