The former aide of Bridget Anne Kelly, whom a New Jersey Governor Chris Christie-commissioned report pinpointed along with a former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey top official as the ones to blame for the four-day massive traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge, will be providing her testimony before a legislative committee today. Christina Renna, who had worked for Kelly, is expected to appear before the 12-member panel in Trenton, New Jersey to shed light on who really ordered the closure of the access lanes from September 9 to 12 in Fort Lee, Bloomberg reported.
The report from Christie's probe described Renna's role as crucial to his innocence in the scandal that her marred his chances for a presidential campaign under the Republican ticket. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, the law firm who had conducted the Christie-ordered probe, said the results of the interviews of 75 witnesses, including Renna, had pointed to Kelly and David Wildstein, as the ones to blame for the access lane closures.
According to one summary of Renna's interview by Gibson Dunn, Kelly called her aide at work following the public release of her emails insinuating the upcoming traffic at the New Jersey bridge. Part of the summary read, "Kelly was hysterically crying and said that she was sorry. Renna asked Kelly if she was going to come into the office, and Kelly said no. Kelly hung up and called Renna back at some point later in the day to ask Renna to log into Kelly's Twitter and delete Kelly's account, because people were tweeting ‘mean things' about Kelly."
The summary also recalled how Kelly instructed Renna to delete an email from Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who had not backed Christie's re-election last fall, Bloomberg said.
Co-chairman of the investigative panel and Democrat Senator Loretta Weinberg said of Renna's upcoming testimony, "(The Renna testimony will be) a point on the road of trying to find out all of the things that might have gone wrong here. We want to find out more about how exactly the IGA (Christie's Legislative & Intergovernmental Affairs office unit) worked and who was in charge."
