After a lot of thought, this is what I think happened.
No matter who all was behind bridgegate, this was plan was thought out in advance.
It does not make sense for Christie to take political payback from the Mayor of Fort Lee because the Mayor was not that big a factor in Christie's re-election campaign.
Given Rachel Maddow's disclosure of the war that Christie started with the Democrats on the State Supreme Court Justices, it does make sense that the target of the payback was the Democratic Majority Leader whose district includes Fort Lee.
I think any discussion of the Mayor of Fort Lee was added strictly to act as a smoke screen should anything go wrong. It gives Christie plausable denial because he can claim that he really does not know the Mayor and the Mayor was not even on his radar.
What people do know is that, in August, Christie went on a public meltdown relating to his decision to not nominate Justice Hoens for a lifetime tenure on the NJ Supreme Court. It was right after that, the emails started to fly and bridgegate occurred. This is a story that could grow legs if the main stream media (beyond Rachel Maddow) picks it up and runs with it. If you tie bridgegate to the NJ Supreme Court war it becomes harder for Christie to play dumb. The timing is too spot on. That is the story that has the potential to gain traction and steam role over Christie.
Even if Christie was not in on the original plot I just don't buy his claim to have only learned about it a couple of days ago. If he became aware anytime after the incident and before the release of the emails then he becomes a co-conspirator after the fact because he was trying really hard to kill the story. Remember his phone call to Cuomo?
In his effort to try to maintain an air of plausible deniability he comes across as a incompetent buffoon who has no business running a state let along anything else.
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he used the state police helicopters to attend his son's ball games -
and for other sundry purposes.
He balked at paying for any of it until the shit hit the fan.
