Experts offer insights on Gov. Christie’s bridge crisis

In a statement issued Wednesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he wasn’t involved in a plan to punish Fort Lee, N.J., Mayor Mark Sokolich for denying him an endorsement in his re-election bid last year.

“What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable,” Christie said, according to The Huffington Post. “I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge.”

Emails between Christie staffers and David Wildstein, Christie’s appointee to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, reveal a concerted plan to create traffic jams in Fort Lee by closing lanes on the George Washington Bridge. The traffic snarls reportedly delayed emergency response vehicles.

Christie has insisted for weeks that the closures were not politically motivated, but were instead part of a traffic study.