Bridget Anne Kelly, Gov. Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, may not be able to get a job in government, but she may have helped torpedo Randy Mastro’s bid to be New York City’s Corporate Counsel, one of the most coveted positions in the legal profession.
At the marathon New York City Council confirmation hearing, Bridget Kelly was the star witness. Of course, in her case, Gov. Christie turned to Mastro to generate an “independent” report to investigate Bridgegate which falsely laid culpability for the lane closure on Kelly referencing a break up she had with Bill Stepien, Christie’s campaign manager as a contributing factor.
The law is a powerful tool.
The spurious claim was made by Mastro at a packed press conference in March of 2014 at the well-appointed offices of his former law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. The so-called “internal” review came at a time when Gov. Christie had a few months earlier racked up what ABC News described as “a decisive win” over his Democratic opponent Sen. Barbara Buono that the network said set the stage “for a 2016 presidential bid.”
In this pre-Trump—pre-ME TOO world, Chris Christie was at the zenith of his power as the Republican winning re-election in a deep blue state and he was chair of the Republican Governors Association. In his final debate with Buono he deflected questions about Bridgegate, designed to punish the Democratic Mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing him, by referencing Buono’s ties to former Middlesex County Sheriff Joseph Spicuzzo, who had just been sentenced to prison on corruption charges.
Christie needed a lawyer who could orchestrate how his situation played out in the court of public opinion and the courts.
“Hiring Randy Mastro’s team of lawyers to conduct an internal investigation into the Bridgegate scandal gave Christie a report exonerating him of all wrongdoing,” NJ Spotlight reported at the time. “He used it last month to restart his sputtering quest for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination and hold onto his chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association.”
NJ Spotlight’s analysis continued. “The 75 interviews that were conducted also gave Christie’s lawyers a chance to grill potential witnesses before they are called in by the U.S. Attorney’s Office or the Legislature’s Select Committee on Investigation, which could have a chilling effect on their testimony if they worry that it might be different from what they told the Mastro team.”
Kelly, single mom of four, was convicted, along with former Port Authority official Bill Baroni, in 2016 on federal corruption charges related to the George Washington Bridge lane closures. In 2020, both of their convictions were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Of course, the members of the Port Authority Police Department that actually executed the lane closures were never charged and Pat Foye, then executive director of the Port Authority testified at trail that he released a false press release to offer cover for Gov. Christie went on to be appointed by Gov. Cuomo to lead the MTA.
Kelly told the City Council panel that Mastro’s $9 million dollar tax payer funded report “lied about me, slut shamed me, scapegoated me and I eventually took the fall for what is known as Bridgegate. And listening to Mr. Mastro’s opening statement and hours of self-serving adjectives I wanted to add one of my own to describe him, sexist.”
She went on to describe that as a consequence of Mastro’s “under handed and unethical actions” she was left her unemployable in the government sector.
At the time, Politico reported that U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton, who oversaw the Bridgegate case “sharply criticized” how Mastro’s firm handled the internal probe asserting the lawyers “were wrong to not preserve their notes” and that taxpayers deserved “transparency” but “what they got instead was opacity and gamesmanship. They deserve better.”
“Do you know I can’t get a job in government—nobody will talk to me,” Kelly told the panel. “I worked in government for twenty years. It’s the only job I ever had and I loved it and I miss it every day. I lost my career and my kids lost a part of their mom.”
Kelly recounted how she was just nine days from having to start her federal prison term in West Virginia when her conviction was thrown out by the nation’s highest court. “The U.S. Supreme Court took my case and they get 10,000 requests a year and they take 75 cases,” she told the City Council.
During the marathon nomination hearing several prominent New Yorkers testified in support of Mastro including former Governor David Paterson. But the New York Times reported that the former Governor, who testified just before Kelly, told her in the hallway, “He’s lucky that I testified before you, because after your testimony, I don’t think I could have sat down,” Paterson told Kelly, the newspaper reported.
Headed into the high stakes confirmation hearing Mastro was already facing headwinds from a skeptical City Council that’s a majority female members mostly of color. They collectively recall Rudy Giuliani’s role in helping spark the September 16, 1992 PBA Riot when thousands of off-duty NYPD officers, many of them drunk, blocked traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and then tried to storm City Hall in a to protest then Mayor David Dinkins proposal to create a civilian agency to evaluate police misconduct allegations.
Mastro describes himself as a Democrat with roots in Bernardsville, New Jersey. His legal and political career has been deeply intertwined with that of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani going back to Giuliani’s days as the hard charging U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York where Mastro was an Assistant U.S. Attorney.
Mastro worked for Giuliani’s Mayoral campaign advising him on campaign finance matters. After Giuliani defeated Mayor Dinkins Mastro became his chief of staff and then was named deputy mayor. In the years since he’s gone on to be named by prestigious law journals as one of the nation’s leading litigators with a corporate client list that includes AIG, Chevron, JP Morgan, Madison Square Garden, Draft Kings, Verizon, Bear Stearns, UBS Financial and the city’s largest real estate syndicates.
His official bio also includes pro bono work for a wide array of clients including “peaceful racial justice demonstrators assaulted by federal authorities to clear Lafayette Park [adjacent to the White House] so President Trump could do a photo-op in mid-2020” as well as “successfully advocating for the families of 9/11 firefighter heroes entitled to millions in donations raised by the NYC Uniformed Firefighters Association widows and orphans fund.”
Mastro told the City Council’s Committee on Rules Privileges and Elections that during his time in City Hall he had gotten death threats for his work successfully fighting organized crime’s control of in the carting industry and the Fulton Fish Market. In the years since, he led the highly regarded good government non-profit Citizens Union which in 2020 took the unprecedented step of endorsing Biden over Trump.
“I am my own man—I have stood up to organized crime—mayors, governors and even presidents when they get it wrong,” Mastro declared. To further bolster his claim he would be independent, he pointed out he had represented the State of New Jersey in its lawsuit challenging the MTA’s congestion pricing on the grounds that it failed to take into account the impact it would have on already overburdened communities of color just west of the Hudson. “You don’t have to guess if I will stand up—I already have,” he asserted.
When asked by members of the City Council for how he viewed Giuliani’s Trump era trajectory, Mastro called it “heartbreaking” yet the historical parallels between the 1992 police riot and Jan. 6 are hard to ignore. Could it be America’s Mayor was always an authoritarian that had no qualms using race to divide and prosper?
Going into Mastro’s hearing he had an impressive list of civic and labor leaders including former New York City Corporate Counsels under previous administrations of both political parties. His nomination comes at a time when the City Council under the leadership of Speaker Adrienne Adams is at odds with Mayor Adams on a wide array of issues from police accountability to the city’s strategy to deal with the deepening homelessness crisis.
Mayor Adams has also been dogged by a federal criminal probe related to campaign finance. The former NYPD police captain was also hit back in March with a lawsuit that alleged he sexually assaulted a female co-worker at the Transit Police Bureau in 1993 after the woman had turned to him for help as part of his leadership role at the Guardians Association, the NYPD’s Black employee fraternal support group.
In a controversial move, the City of New York had opted earlier this year to defend Mayor Adams in that sexual assault lawsuit. It’s also on the hook for a sexual harassment suit filed against Tim Pearson, a former NYPD inspector and Mayoral confidant, who leads what Politico describes as a “clandestine mayoral unit closely tied to the NYPD that is focused on monitoring service delivery across city agencies.”
Local governments indemnifying police officers has become a red hot issue in the aftermath of the George Floyd police murder. In New York City, during the Bloomberg years, the City of New York paid out over $1 billion dollars to settle NYPD misconduct cases.
The controversy is similar to the one sparked by the decision by former Attorney General William Barr to defend former President Trump in the lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll where she charged Trump had defamed her when he belittled her rape allegations filed civilly against him.
When the police and elected leaders are being sued should they be able to use taxpayers funds to defend themselves? Is it something to be evaluated on a case by case basis? What if the lawsuit was brought because the public employee actually broke the law and prosecutors failed to act?
The decision to cover Mayor Adams was made by then New York City Corporation Counsel Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix, a well-respected former Associate Justice of the New York State Appellate Division. Reporters asked her if the Corporation Counsel was representing the Office of the Mayor, or Eric Adams, the occupant of the office.
“The mayor is entitled to representation as a former employee of the Transit Authority, under the State Public Officers Law. And the Transit Authority Police Department, as you are aware, merged, there was a merger in 1995; and after that merger, there was an agreement that the city and the corporation counsel became obligated to represent former Transit Authority employees,” Hinds-Radix told reporters. “The mayor, therefore, is not getting any special treatment. He is being treated the way he’s entitled to and that’s why there is representation here.”
Multiple press reports described growing tensions between Mayor Adams and Hinds-Radix over indemnifying Pearson. Hinds-Radix submitted her resignation on May 31st.
That cleared the way for Adams to nominate Mastro, the same lawyer Chris Christie brought in to shape his taxpayer Bridgegate narrative that cost Bridget Anne Kelly so dearly.
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Bridget Kelly, a former aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, recently sat down for an interview with Insider NJ to share her perspective on the ongoing Mastro investigation. Kelly, who was convicted in the Bridgegate scandal, has been vocal about her experiences and insights into the inner workings of the Christie administration.
During the interview, Kelly discussed her interactions with Randy Mastro, the attorney who led the internal investigation into the Bridgegate scandal. Mastro’s report ultimately cleared Christie of any wrongdoing, but Kelly believes that the investigation was biased and incomplete.
Kelly expressed her frustration with Mastro’s handling of the investigation, stating that she felt he was more concerned with protecting Christie than uncovering the truth. She also criticized Mastro for not interviewing key witnesses or considering all of the evidence before reaching his conclusions.
In addition to her criticisms of Mastro, Kelly also discussed her own role in the Bridgegate scandal and how she has come to terms with her actions. She expressed regret for her involvement in the scheme to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge as political retribution, but also emphasized that she was following orders from higher-ups in the administration.
Overall, Kelly’s interview with Insider NJ sheds light on the complexities of the Bridgegate scandal and the various perspectives involved. As the investigation into Mastro’s role continues, it will be interesting to see how Kelly’s insights shape the narrative surrounding this high-profile case.
