David Wildstein

David Wildstein Image by Getty

By Forward Staff November 14, 2016

Pinning the BridgeGate Scandal on Chris Christie

If they made a movie about David Wildstein’s roller-coaster political career and ties to high school classmate Chris Christie, it might be called “Revenge of the Nerd.”

In October, Wildstein, 55, abandoned his political guru when his testimony in the explosive Bridgegate trial helped prosecutors secure convictions against two officials in the Christie administration. Prior to the trial, Wildstein pleaded guilty to his role in the 2013 scheme to close multiple lanes of the busy George Washington Bridge to punish a local mayor.

When they were growing up in suburban Livingston, New Jersey, Wildstein was the geeky outcast, while Christie, the future Republican presidential candidate, was a popular jock.,

The chubby Wildstein, who was raised in an upper-middle-class secular Jewish family, went on to become a political wunderkind of sorts. He won election as mayor of his hometown as a Republican when he was just 25 and forged a promising career as a political consultant and blogger.

When Christie became governor of New Jersey, he gave Wildstein a top post at the Port Authority, the powerful agency that oversees bridges and tunnels in the New York area.

In court, Wildstein claimed that Christie, who has not been charged, knew about the phony traffic study plan as it unfolded. Christie has repeatedly and forcefully denied the allegation and also said that he wasn’t really friends with Wildstein in high school.

Christie’s alleged complicity could have been a national bombshell if Christie had won the GOP nomination or been named Donald Trump’s running mate. And, in the wake of the successful Trump campaign, it may have played into Christie losing out as chairman of Trump’s transition team — giving Wildstein the last laugh.

The Forward’s staff contributors are listed in our masthead.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO