01.23.2014
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: Political pressure in Zimmer allegation may not constitute a crime. However, the seeds of distrust have been planted
Investigators from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark met with Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer on Sunday, a day after she accused Governor Christie’s administration of tying Superstorm Sandy grants to a politically connected development proposal.
NBC News reported Wednesday night that FBI agents have begun questioning witnesses in the investigation, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the probe.
Federal prosecutors and agents have also instructed key witnesses to preserve all documents and emails relating to the allegations by Zimmer, the sources told NBC.
The Christie administration strongly denies Zimmer’s allegation.
But if Zimmer’s allegations are true, lawyers who have handled corruption cases around the country said the government will need to prove Christie or his administration received or expected to receive some kind of benefit in exchange for pressuring Zimmer for a federal crime to have occurred.
Attorneys disagreed on how clear-cut that benefit has to be, however. And a Supreme Court ruling that resulted in many corruption convictions being overturned has made it tougher for prosecutors to bring corruption cases, some said.
Numerous New Jersey attorneys contacted for this article declined to comment, with some saying they expected to represent Christie administration officials who are facing subpoenas from the state Legislature, which is investigating the September closure of Fort Lee access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.
Zimmer said she wrote in her journal in May about what she considered a threat delivered by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno: that Hoboken’s applications for Sandy-related funds would be denied if the mayor blocked a development proposed by The Rockefeller Group. The developer is represented by a law firm headed by David Samson, a Christie ally and chairman of the Port Authority, and the developer’s lobbyist is a former member of Christie’s Cabinet, Lori Grifa. All have denied any wrongdoing.
On Sunday, Zimmer revealed she had turned her journal over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark and spent two hours talking with investigators.
Just showing that the developer had strong political connections is not enough to prove a crime if there’s no proof the project would improperly benefit Christie or his administration, said Patrick Hanly, a defense attorney in California who worked for 15 years as a federal prosecutor.
“It’s ugly, but if it’s like, ‘You want Sandy money and I want this, let’s do a deal,’ — that’s politics,” Hanly said. “Somebody has to have a financial interest in the development. The developer having political juice is not going to do it, that happens all the time. It’s not right, but it happens all the time.”
Chicago defense attorney Sam Adam Jr., who represented former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in a corruption trial, disagreed with Hanly’s assessment.
Adam said aggressive prosecutors do not need an explicit benefit to bring a case, noting Blagojevich was convicted for asking about a possible Cabinet post in President Obama’s administration during discussions over appointing a successor to Obama in the U.S. Senate. The attorney assisting in the state Legislature’s bridge investigation, Reid Schar, is a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Blagojevich.
“It does not have to be explicit any longer,” Adam said. “You don’t have to have a conversation where someone says, we’ll give you one if you do the other.”
Adam said a case could be brought with only a campaign contribution as evidence of a benefit to Christie.
The Rockefeller Group did not donate directly to Christie’s reelection fund or the Republican Governors Association, which Christie chairs, according to state campaign finance reports and IRS documents. Two employees of the firm donated a combined $1,500 to Christie’s primary fund, according to state records.
Wolff and Samson, the law firm serving as The Rockefeller Group’s lobbyist, contributed $10,000 to the Republican Governors Association in July 2012, state records show.
Other lawyers said it is difficult to prove cases based on campaign contributions alone, and that prosecutors will need evidence tying a contribution to an official action.
“It doesn’t need to be a lot of money, but you do need there to be a quid pro quo and evidence of a direct exchange,” said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor who is now executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Evidence could be a message in which someone promised to put pressure on Zimmer in exchange for something, or someone said pressure needed to be applied because a contribution had been received, she said.
“It may not be a violation of the statute if it simply is that Governor Christie thinks this is a worthy development that should be done,” said Solomon Wisenberg, a defense attorney who once served as deputy special prosecutor in the Whitewater/Lewinsky scandal and took a deposition from President Bill Clinton.
On his blog, Wisenberg had criticized the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark this month for saying it would look at the lane closures, but he said Zimmer’s allegation is something that would raise red flags for prosecutors and white collar defense attorneys alike.
“You’ve got somebody accused of conditioning receipt of federal funds on something other than whether or not it’s valid to get them,” he said.
Wisenberg said prosecutors would need more than Zimmer’s word and her journal, however. “I’ve seen that between the time she wrote in her diary and this came out, she made pro-Christie statements. That’s a question of proof, and if that’s all they have, they’ve got a real proof problem,” he said.
Nevertheless, there is enough for the government to start digging, he said.
“If I were a prosecutor, I’d subpoena all the emails. Maybe someone sent email somewhere saying ‘I leaned on the mayor.’
A lot of Chris Christie’s people have been shown to say stupid things in emails,” Wisenberg said.
source
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: Political pressure in Zimmer allegation may not constitute a crime. However, the seeds of distrust have been planted
RECORD FILE PHOTO
Democunt Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer has said that Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno told her the city's applications for Sandy-related funds would be denied if the mayor blocked a key development proposal.
Investigators from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark met with Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer on Sunday, a day after she accused Governor Christie’s administration of tying Superstorm Sandy grants to a politically connected development proposal.
NBC News reported Wednesday night that FBI agents have begun questioning witnesses in the investigation, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the probe.
Federal prosecutors and agents have also instructed key witnesses to preserve all documents and emails relating to the allegations by Zimmer, the sources told NBC.
The Christie administration strongly denies Zimmer’s allegation.
But if Zimmer’s allegations are true, lawyers who have handled corruption cases around the country said the government will need to prove Christie or his administration received or expected to receive some kind of benefit in exchange for pressuring Zimmer for a federal crime to have occurred.
Attorneys disagreed on how clear-cut that benefit has to be, however. And a Supreme Court ruling that resulted in many corruption convictions being overturned has made it tougher for prosecutors to bring corruption cases, some said.
Numerous New Jersey attorneys contacted for this article declined to comment, with some saying they expected to represent Christie administration officials who are facing subpoenas from the state Legislature, which is investigating the September closure of Fort Lee access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.
Zimmer said she wrote in her journal in May about what she considered a threat delivered by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno: that Hoboken’s applications for Sandy-related funds would be denied if the mayor blocked a development proposed by The Rockefeller Group. The developer is represented by a law firm headed by David Samson, a Christie ally and chairman of the Port Authority, and the developer’s lobbyist is a former member of Christie’s Cabinet, Lori Grifa. All have denied any wrongdoing.
On Sunday, Zimmer revealed she had turned her journal over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark and spent two hours talking with investigators.
Just showing that the developer had strong political connections is not enough to prove a crime if there’s no proof the project would improperly benefit Christie or his administration, said Patrick Hanly, a defense attorney in California who worked for 15 years as a federal prosecutor.
“It’s ugly, but if it’s like, ‘You want Sandy money and I want this, let’s do a deal,’ — that’s politics,” Hanly said. “Somebody has to have a financial interest in the development. The developer having political juice is not going to do it, that happens all the time. It’s not right, but it happens all the time.”
Chicago defense attorney Sam Adam Jr., who represented former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in a corruption trial, disagreed with Hanly’s assessment.
Adam said aggressive prosecutors do not need an explicit benefit to bring a case, noting Blagojevich was convicted for asking about a possible Cabinet post in President Obama’s administration during discussions over appointing a successor to Obama in the U.S. Senate. The attorney assisting in the state Legislature’s bridge investigation, Reid Schar, is a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Blagojevich.
“It does not have to be explicit any longer,” Adam said. “You don’t have to have a conversation where someone says, we’ll give you one if you do the other.”
Adam said a case could be brought with only a campaign contribution as evidence of a benefit to Christie.
The Rockefeller Group did not donate directly to Christie’s reelection fund or the Republican Governors Association, which Christie chairs, according to state campaign finance reports and IRS documents. Two employees of the firm donated a combined $1,500 to Christie’s primary fund, according to state records.
Wolff and Samson, the law firm serving as The Rockefeller Group’s lobbyist, contributed $10,000 to the Republican Governors Association in July 2012, state records show.
Other lawyers said it is difficult to prove cases based on campaign contributions alone, and that prosecutors will need evidence tying a contribution to an official action.
“It doesn’t need to be a lot of money, but you do need there to be a quid pro quo and evidence of a direct exchange,” said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor who is now executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Evidence could be a message in which someone promised to put pressure on Zimmer in exchange for something, or someone said pressure needed to be applied because a contribution had been received, she said.
“It may not be a violation of the statute if it simply is that Governor Christie thinks this is a worthy development that should be done,” said Solomon Wisenberg, a defense attorney who once served as deputy special prosecutor in the Whitewater/Lewinsky scandal and took a deposition from President Bill Clinton.
On his blog, Wisenberg had criticized the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark this month for saying it would look at the lane closures, but he said Zimmer’s allegation is something that would raise red flags for prosecutors and white collar defense attorneys alike.
“You’ve got somebody accused of conditioning receipt of federal funds on something other than whether or not it’s valid to get them,” he said.
Wisenberg said prosecutors would need more than Zimmer’s word and her journal, however. “I’ve seen that between the time she wrote in her diary and this came out, she made pro-Christie statements. That’s a question of proof, and if that’s all they have, they’ve got a real proof problem,” he said.
Nevertheless, there is enough for the government to start digging, he said.
“If I were a prosecutor, I’d subpoena all the emails. Maybe someone sent email somewhere saying ‘I leaned on the mayor.’
A lot of Chris Christie’s people have been shown to say stupid things in emails,” Wisenberg said.
source
Christie is now in the position where his only defense that he is not a crook is to claim that he is an incompetent, out of touch moron whose friends and associates are all crooks. Heckuva platform to run on.
ReplyDeleteHe won't even get out of the primaries. His GOP "colleagues" will eat him alive on that basis and save Democrats the trouble.
Dawn Zimmer is The Real Deal. Love to see her on the ticket with Elizabeth Warren in 2016.
Disclaimer: I am a US Army veteran, E-5, Honorable Discharge. Your patriotism may vary.