AP
After a team of lawyers hired by the office of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie released an internal review clearing him of any wrongdoing related to last September's lane closures on the George Washington Bridge, critics were quick to dismiss the report as a biased waste of taxpayer funds that revealed no new information about the so-called "Bridgegate" scandal.
However, there seems to have been one big bit of new information in the report that could play a role in the ongoing investigation-it definitively claims there's no proverbial smoking gun tying the governor to the closures.
Attorneys with the firm of Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher LLP compiled the report and claimed they reviewed "more than 250.000 documents" and conducted "interviews with more than 70 witnesses" to investigate the accusations Christie's allies ordered the lane closures for political reasons. The closures led to days of gridlock in Fort Lee, N.J. and some Democrats have alleged they were an attempt to exact revenge on the mayor there for declining to endorse Christie's re-election bid last year.
Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher's report concluded Christie "did not know of the lane realignment beforehand and had no involvement in the decision to realign the lanes." At a subsequent press conference at the firm's office in Manhattan Thursday, attorney Randy Mastro declared there was "not a shred of evidence" Christie
Documents reviewed by the lawyers included text messages from Christie's official and personal phones as well as emails from both his personal and government accounts. Because of this, it seems the report claims there's no evidence directly tying Christie to the order to close the lanes in all of those emails and texts.
Indeed, Mastro confirmed to Business Insider Friday that the lawyers found no written communication showing Christie discussing the lane closures before they were enacted or while they were in effect.
"There's not a shred of documentary evidence," Mastro said.
Make no mistake, whatever anyone thinks of this report or its conclusions, this is a consequential claim.
Communications subpoenaed by committees in the New Jersey Legislature investigating the closures earlier this year showed other members of Christie's inner circle were involved in incriminating discussions about the decision to shut the lane. Christie has cut ties with several of these staffers and, in the wake of the report, denounced two of them.
Some of these former allies have indicated they would be willing to cooperate with the investigation into the closures if they can make an immunity deal with prosecutors. If there is indeed no documentary evidence showing Christie played a part in the lane closure scheme, this means any investigation into the governor's Bridgegate will end up being a "he said, she said" situation.