It was a surprise that the City Council used their hearing on Mayor Adams’ nomination of Randy Mastro to be the city’s top lawyer, the corporation counsel, as a legislative pile-on, with member after member firing a barrage at the nominee in what seemed a scripted affair.
The other surprise came when Mastro left the witness table after 8½ hours and Bridget Kelly, of Bridgegate infamy, sat down.
Kelly was one of Gov. Chris Christie’s three villains, along with Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, who plotted to inflict massive traffic jams on the town of Fort Lee and its Democratic mayor for not endorsing their Republican boss for his 2013 reelection.
Mastro was hired by Christie at public expense to review the mess and Mastro published a whitewash of a report in 2014 that cleared Christie and blamed Kelly, speculating about her romantic relationships. As we said, “ugly is the word for this bit of evidence-free psychologizing and invasion of privacy.”
Kelly used her Council appearance to denounce Mastro for a report she called “sexist” and that “I am proud of my 20 years working hand in hand with New York City during my time in New Jersey state government.”
However, we must remind everyone that Kelly still remains a villain, having been indicted in 2015 and convicted. Yes, in 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out the conviction because the plotters didn’t personally gain money from the fraud. But as Justice Elena Kagan wrote, “the evidence the jury heard no doubt shows wrongdoing — deception, corruption, abuse of power.”
Also in the decision it was said that Kelly was the author of the “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email. As Kagan wrote, “Kelly confirmed to Wildstein that she wanted to ‘creat[e] a traffic jam that would punish’ Mayor Sokolich and ‘send him a message.’ ”
And when everything ground to a stop in Fort Lee, Kelly sent a text to a co-conspirator asking: “Is it wrong that I am smiling?”
And also from Kagan: “As Kelly’s own lawyer acknowledged, this case involves an ‘abuse of power.’ ”
“For no reason other than political payback, Baroni and Kelly used deception to reduce Fort Lee’s access lanes to the George Washington Bridge — and thereby jeopardized the safety of the town’s residents.”
That’s what really happened with Kelly and Bridgegate and it has nothing to do with Randy Mastro.