Christie’s Bridgegate Baggage Is Back — And David Wildstein Should Be Question #1

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie is once again in the blast zone of Bridgegate. After Christie criticized Donald Trump on ABC this weekend, Trump fired back by threatening to push for a fresh look at the 2013 Fort Lee lane-closure scandal — the same episode that kneecapped Christie’s national ambitions and still shadows his claims of judgment and leadership. Independent reporting confirms Trump’s threat and the renewed political fight. 

Bridgegate is not ancient history. It’s a test of basic ethics in government: whether public power was abused to punish a local mayor and whether those at the top fostered — or tolerated — a political culture where that could happen. The core facts are not in dispute: lanes to the George Washington Bridge were closed in September 2013, causing massive gridlock in Fort Lee. Emails from Christie’s deputy chief of staff read, infamously, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” 

Two senior Christie allies — Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni — were convicted by a jury, only to have those convictions unanimously overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 on narrow legal grounds: the scheme, as charged, did not aim to obtain money or property, which the federal fraud statutes require. That decision did not vindicate the conduct; it held the charged federal crimes didn’t fit the facts. Read it yourself: Justice Kagan’s opinion is concise and clear. 

And then there is David Wildstein.

Wildstein, a Christie appointee to the Port Authority, admitted he ordered the closures. He pleaded guilty in 2015, cooperated with prosecutors, and in 2017 received three years’ probation, 500 hours of community service, and financial penalties. That is the legal record. Wildstein now runs The New Jersey Globe as editor-in-chief — a position that gives him outsized influence over how Jersey politics are framed. These two facts together should make every reader — and every newsroom — sit up straight. 

Why Christie still hasn’t answered the fundamental question

Christie was never charged. But multiple proceedings and trial testimony placed his inner circle at the center of a punitive misuse of government power — under his watch, during his reelection. Whether he “knew then” has been contested in courtrooms and committee rooms, and Christie has repeatedly denied prior knowledge. None of that erases the leadership failure: a political operation close enough to him felt comfortable weaponizing a bridge. That’s not exoneration — that’s a management indictment. 

The media accountability gap around Wildstein

Wildstein isn’t just a historical figure in the case; he is a present-day gatekeeper in New Jersey political media. Given his admitted role and plea, his coverage and commentary on Christie, Bridgegate, and related players deserve rigorous scrutiny and transparent disclosure, every single time. When Bridgegate re-enters the conversation — as it did this week — Wildstein should be the first person aggressively questioned on-the-record about:

what he did, what others around Christie knew in real time, and how his outlet navigates conflicts when reporting on the scandal’s protagonists. That’s Journalism 101. (His current role at the New Jersey Globe is publicly stated by the outlet itself.) 

The Supreme Court ruling isn’t a moral clean bill of health

Some will wave the 2020 Supreme Court reversal as a political shield for Christie. Read the decision: the Court threw out the convictions because the federal fraud theory didn’t fit — not because the behavior was fine. Using public resources to choke a town for political payback is an abuse of power, even if it doesn’t satisfy a specific federal statute’s “money or property” element. That is precisely what the Court explained. 

What New Jersey should demand now

From Christie: clear answers about his office’s culture in 2013 and what, if anything, he did to hold wrongdoers accountable beyond public distancing. Voters deserve an account of leadership, not lawyered denials. (Background on the scandal’s documented facts is well established.)  From David Wildstein: on-the-record interviews about his admitted conduct and any contemporaneous communications with senior Christie aides; explicit conflict-of-interest practices at the Globe when covering Christie, Bridgegate, and Port Authority politics; and publication of a standing disclosure on Bridgegate pieces. (Wildstein’s plea and sentence are documented by DOJ.)  From the press: stop treating Bridgegate as old news when its principal actors still shape coverage and political narratives today. Re-read the legal record and ask sharper questions. (Recent reporting confirms the political fight has brought Bridgegate back to center stage.) 

Bottom line

Trump’s threat to resurrect Bridgegate as a political cudgel tells us less about Trump than it does about Christie’s unresolved problem: the scandal is a leadership stain that a Supreme Court opinion cannot bleach. And as long as David Wildstein — the man who admitted to ordering the closures — is editing a major New Jersey political outlet, the first accountability interview on any Bridgegate redux should start with him. That’s not personal. It’s responsible journalism grounded in the public record.