Discussion:

Discussion for article #242755

As Scooby Doo would say, ruh roh.

Finally stuck a rooter up the campaign drain —

                   gurgle    ............    gurgle

Took a hard drive? I’m guessing it wasn’t his porn collection.

I suppose one way to make PDF files large and unsearchable would be to make them as images of the printed documents rather than as conventional text.

i’m sure christie has absolutely nothing to hide. after all, he told us so. transparent as a jellyfish.

“… to allegedly punish Fort Lee mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing Christie’s 2013 re-election,…”

Do people still believe this?

Defense lawyers also allege that Gibson Dunn is aggressively blocking the disclosure of emails, calendars, and documents from the governor’s office that they have a right to see. There is, for example, not a single email from Chris Christie’s official email account included in the 1.7 million documents being reviewed in this case.

You don’t say? This would be the same Chris Christie that’s presently berating Hillary Clinton for allegedly not turning over all her personal e-mails?

3. They also allege that the law firm retained by Governor Christie’s
   office at public expense, Gibson Dunn Crutcher – remember the Mastro
   Report? – produced files that are, in the words of Kelly’s attorney,
   “not only unsearchable… [but] also randomly produced in massive PDF
   files that prevent counsel from effectively reviewing or organizing”
   them.

I know this is a minor point, but expensive high powered law firm cannot wrangle PDF’s? It’s called Acrobat Pro, your IT guy can get you a crack.

So, Wildstein took a hard drive, did he? Across the bridge? Because we all did, that’s the problem.

Am interesting side note is that some jurisdictions (I have no idea what NJ’s Bar Association’s position or its Supreme Court is) consider, when looking to whom the privilege belongs to is that whomever pays the bills to the law firm is the “client.” Therefore, Gibson Dunn have no leg to stand on, and neither does the US Attorney, for claiming the attorney-client privilege. The “privilege,” belongs to the taxpayers of NJ and thus no individual can claim the privilege for themselves unless they can establish a separate attorney-client relationship. If they can establish such a separate relationship, then Gibson Dunn has a real problem with a conflict of interest. Otherwise, the privilege belongs to whoever initiates and approves the appropriation of funds on behalf of the people of NJ. In most places, that would be the State Legislature.

The defense is looking for a delay. The prosecution has every incentive to allow it since the guy they really want to catch is Christie.

Baroni and Kelly aren’t going to find exculpatory information in the documents. The only reason the documents could help them is if it allowed them to corroborate their claim that Christie was behind the closure.

Dumping the documents in a single blob means it will take the defense a couple of weeks to crack and catalog them.

“U.S. Attorney appointed by a Democratic president would necessarily be reluctant to publicly move against a Republican governor who is in the midst of a presidential run. Politics can dictate timing.”

I also wonder if it is because Christie was a US Attorney - do they insulate him because he was one of them.

I think @robcat2075 preemptively answered your question.

Brian, so you are saying that christie has incentive to prolong his campaign not just for free food and hotels, but also to delay indictment?

The buck stops down there!

Unfortunately, the law of privilege in the context of exercising executive discretion is not nearly so clean and clear as one might imagine from your analysis.

The way you’re figuring is logical and rational and … ahistoric. Bear in mind that executive bodies have had centuries, not just in this country but elsewhere, to carve out exceptions to the what would seem the logical, rational approach. And those claims have enjoyed a lot of success in the courts. One might even conclude that the higher up one goes in the federal court system, the more likely you’ll encounter career government insiders sitting in lifetime appointments on the SCOTUS & DC circuit in particular. And in THAT conclusion, of course, you’d be correct.

Roberts, Alitto & Thomas all were appointed into the federal court system from or materially owing to work down in positions inside Republican administrations. You could argue Kagan as well, tho she’d already achieved academic success before she worked in the Obama administration. And if anything, this picture is even more stark in the DC Circuit.

What is a group of worms called? A nest, a pod, a litter? Whatever it is, this group of worms from Christie on down is the worst ever.

I have a theory about some people just being to fricking mean for the law, combined, this group of hugs may just be that.

We need an omni-arrest and mass prosecution. Throw them all in the clink for conspiracy and some form of Rico thing.

…and this article is just a tiny sliver of information of the blizzard that swirls around in NJ.

A ‘can’.