A lawyer for a former Chris Christie aide called the New Jersey governor a “coward” and a liar during his closing arguments at the Bridgegate trial Monday.
“Chris Christie, where are you?” Bridget Anne Kelly’s lawyer Michael Critchley shouted in the Newark federal courthouse on Monday.
“Where’s Kevin O’Dowd?” Critchley then roared, referring to Christie’s former chief of staff.
“They want the mother of four to take the fall for them,” he insisted.
“Cowards!” he declared. “Cowards!”
Critchley argued that there simply wasn’t enough evidence to convict Kelly of orchestrating the George Washington Bridge lane closures as an act of political retribution.
“The absence of evidence creates reasonable doubt,” Critchley claimed. “It’s called lack of evidence.”
Critchley made his emotional appeal at the tail end of the six-week trial of Kelly and former Port Authority executive Bill Baroni.
Kelly and Baroni stand accused of closing entrance lanes to the George Washington Bridge to punish the mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, for not endorsing Christie’s 2013 re-election.
Their fate is now in the hands of Newark federal jurors, who deliberated for under an hour on Monday before asking to go home. They will continue deliberations on Tuesday morning.
Kelly has testified that she only approved the lane closures after consulting with Christie, who has denied any knowledge of the scheme.
“If that conversation didn’t occur, get Chris Christie up here to say you’re a liar,” Critchley said during his closing argument.
“Chris Christie knew about it in August, he knew about it in September, he knew about it in December — and he lied,” Critchley asserted. “He lied about it, why? Because it would affect his presidential campaign.”
The government’s star witness, David Wildstein, has also testified that he talked to Christie about the lane closures. Wildstein said he and Baroni told the governor about the lane closures while they were happening — and that Christie laughed about it.
Several other witnesses testified that they warned Christie his aides may have been involved in the scheme ahead of his Dec. 13th press conference, during which he denied any staff involvement.
Both Kelly and Baroni have said they were duped by Wildstein into thinking the lane closures were for a traffic study. But Kelly has also suggested she was hung out to dry by the governor and his aides, who wanted to help Christie stay out of the scandal.
“We were was caught in the middle of two schemes,” Critchley said.
Critchley also said witnesses who contradicted Kelly’s testimony have a reason to lie because they “all have a tether to Chris Christie.”
During rebuttal, prosecutor Vikas Khanna accused Critchley of trying to “distract” jurors.
“He wants to make it about Gov. Christie’s presidential election,” he told jurors.
“He’s trying to distract you form the core of the case. Why? Because the evidence in this case against his client is devastating,” Khanna said.
Khanna also questioned Kelly and Baroni’s story that they were duped by Wildstein into thinking the lane closures were a traffic study.
“What the defendants told you, quite frankly, is a fantasy,” Khanna said.
“The defendants took the stand and no one in this case had a bigger incentive to lie than they did.”