BRIDGEGATE: At trial’s closing, someone finally takes on the bully named Chris Christie
For two hours on Halloween, Michael Critchley, the relentless criminal defense lawyer, said about Chris Christie what should have been said long ago. What should have been said about the US Attorney’s office while Christie ran it. What should have been said about the conduct of state government under Christie.
Critchley, the lawyer for Bridget Anne Kelly, called Christie a “bully” and a “liar” and a “coward.” Critchley became, for just that brief time, the kid on the playground who finally had enough of the bully and challenged him to a fight–he literally told Christie to “come at me.”
Critchley became, for those two hours, the stand-in for a flaccid press that should have exposed Christie years ago when he was using the media and his office as US Attorney to eliminate potential political rivals–a press that settled for his approval and for the access to leaks that approval meant.
“He lied, he flat out lied,” Critchley said in court Monday, citing the words of a witness–and then, in the courtroom, the lawyer turned to the professional descendants of Christie who were prosecuting his client and said, words bristling with sarcasm, “The chief federal prosecutor wouldn’t lie, would he?”
Critchley became, but only for a time, the substitute for legislators who bent to Christie’s will by approving without reservation public officials–including top law enforcement figures and even judges–whose behavior raised serious questions. The spokesman for the silent lawyers who have been too afraid to say publicly what they have said privately about Christie both as governor and prosecutor, afraid because it hurt their clients.
“Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!” Critchley literally shouted during his closing argument for Kelly–and while he was then talking about Christie and former Attorney General and assistant US Attorney Kevin O’Dowd and others–he might as well have been screaming at all of those who contributed to making Christie what he was. He could have been talking about Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo and Sheriff Armando Fontoura and Union City Mayor Brian Stack–and BRIDGEGATE: At trial’s closing, someone finally takes on the bully named Chris Christie |:
