Did Ex-Aide Help Former US Attorney in Gubernatorial Run?
A onetime top aide to a former United States attorney in New Jersey may have used her position in “possibly improper ways” to help her ex-boss, Christopher Christie, in his campaign for the job of state governor, the New York Times says.
But those in Christie’s camp say the article is just the latest example of how a hard-fought race is focusing in on relatively minor matters, this time only a few weeks before the November election.
Citing unnamed federal law enforcement sources, the newspaper reports that Michele Brown interceded in March to oversee the office’s response to Freedom of Information Act requests by Christie’s opponent, Democratic incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine, that included requests for travel records of Christie and Brown. It also says that Brown, who is now in private practice, argued for earlier arrests of 40 targets in a massive corruption and money-laundering sting so that they would take place before Christie’s successor as U.S. attorney, Ralph Marra, took the helm this summer. The U.S. Department of Justice told Marra in August to remove Brown from her FOIA oversight role concerning records about Christie because of an apparent conflict of interest, the Times states, and the acting first assistant U.S. attorney resigned from the prosecutor’s office soon afterward.
As discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, Brown’s resignation also followed news that she had been loaned $46,000 by Christie, and had been making $500-a-month repayments at 5.5 percent interest.
Brown characterized the newspaper’s new allegations as “outrageous and inaccurate” in an e-mail to the Times and declined to be interviewed for the article. Christie stood by earlier statements that Brown has not helped his campaign in any way.
In conference call with reporters this morning, the chairman of Christie’s campaign, state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Middletown) and a campaign strategist, criticized the newspaper for focusing on peripheral issues, such as the candidate’s weight, instead of critical concerns, reports the Politicker N.J. blog.
“I haven’t seen one single story about the state’s economy, one single story about the state’s unemployment rate, one single story about why the unemployment rate is higher than New York or Connecticut or higher than other places where the paper circulates in a big way, and I’ll leave it at that,” said Kyrillos.
Earlier related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Hard-Fought N.J. Governor Race Puts Ex-US Attorney’s Driving Record at Issue”
