{"id":104927,"date":"2014-01-10T13:35:02","date_gmt":"2014-01-10T13:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/nj-governor-apologizes-for-scandal\/"},"modified":"2014-01-10T13:35:02","modified_gmt":"2014-01-10T13:35:02","slug":"nj-governor-apologizes-for-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/nj-governor-apologizes-for-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"NJ governor apologizes for scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>New Jersey Governor Chris Christie apologized Thursday for a scandal that threatens his political future and announced he had fired a senior aide involved in the case. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>His apology came after a series of emails and text messages disclosed Wednesday showed that he was probably linked to a deliberate plan to create traffic gridlock in a town at the base of a major bridge in early September. <\/p>\n<p>Christie ousted Bill Stepien, who managed both of the New Jersey Republican\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s winning campaigns for governor, and another top adviser implicated in the burgeoning scandal over George Washington Bridge lane closures. <\/p>\n<p>\u00c5\u201cThis is the exception \u201d it is not the rule \u201d of what\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s happened over the last four years in this administration,\u201d Christie said in a news conference. He added that he was \u00c5\u201cstunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Republican Party\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s leading 2016 presidential hopeful said the incident had \u00c5\u201cembarrassed and humiliated\u201d him. <\/p>\n<p>The gridlock was allegedly planned to punish a Democratic mayor refused to endorse the governor\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s for re-election.<\/p>\n<p>After his news conference, Christie traveled to Fort Lee to apologize personally to city\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s mayor Mark Sokolish and the community for the lane closures, which severely delayed commuters, school buses and emergency vehicles.<\/p>\n<p>The mayor said later he accepted Christie\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s apology. \u00c5\u201cI take him for his word.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Christie at once accepted responsibility as the state\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s chief executive but denied any involvement, blaming \u00c5\u201cdeceitful\u201d staff.<\/p>\n<p>The scandal comes as the governor assumes a larger position on the national stage, as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.<\/p>\n<p>An investigation has already begun since December into the lane closing by the Port Authority Inspector General\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s office. <\/p>\n<p>ARA\/ARA<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.presstv.ir\/detail\/2014\/01\/10\/344806\/new-jersey-governor-scandal\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"NJ governor apologizes for scandal\">Press TV<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Jersey Governor Chris Christie apologized Thursday for a scandal that threatens his political future and announced he had fired a senior aide involved in the case. His apology came after a series of emails and text messages disclosed Wednesday showed that he was probably linked to a deliberate plan to create traffic gridlock in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-104927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}