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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChristie ACCUSED Of MEDDLING With State Ethics Agency
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Newark Star-Ledger:
Now, three former commission officials, breaking four years of silence, are accusing the governors office of unprecedented interference with an agency set up to be free of political influence. Christie, they say, pushed the agency commissioners to replace the executive director at a time when she was investigating a member of his own staff thus crossing a line no other governor had before.
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/04/former_watchdogs_accuse_christie_of_interfering_with_state_ethics_agency.html#incart_flyout_politics
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/04/former_watchdogs_accuse_christie_of_interfering_with_state_ethics_agency.html#incart_flyout_politics
One of the three officials is a former Republican state senator who served as the Ethics Commission vice chairman. Essentially, the claim is that Christie fired the Ethics Commission chairwoman after she refused to provide the name of a citizen who had filed an anonymous complaint against a Christie administration official who had allegedly interfered with a state agency decision dealing with feral cats. The officialsurprise, surpriseworked for Bill Stepien and Bridget Anne Kelly, the two former Christie aides at the center of the Fort Lee lane closure scandal. Of course, the Christie administration denies doing anything wrong, because what could possibly be wrong about firing the head of a supposedly independent ethics commission when she refuses to expose the identity of someone accusing the administration of improprieties?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/14/1291914/-Christie-accused-of-meddling-with-state-ethics-agency
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Christie ACCUSED Of MEDDLING With State Ethics Agency (Original Post)
Segami
Apr 2014
OP
Segami
(14,923 posts)1. "....Several officials who led the commission for years are highlighting..
....the story of Wiechniks ouster. They said the watchdog agency was compromised by the dismissal of Wiechnik, the subsequent appointment of Christie loyalists, and by the chairmans own breach of the state ethics law. Looking back, they say, it was also a precursor of power abuses to come.
"The public trust is badly shaken by these allegations that the watchdog agency obliged to zealously police the executive branch has become a pawn of that branch," said Paula A. Franzese, a law professor at Seton Hall University who helped toughen New Jerseys ethics laws in 2005 and chaired the ethics commission for years. She called on state lawmakers to reform the watchdog agency and lessen the governors control over it.
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/04/former_watchdogs_accuse_christie_of_interfering_with_state_ethics_agency.html#incart_flyout_politics
"The public trust is badly shaken by these allegations that the watchdog agency obliged to zealously police the executive branch has become a pawn of that branch," said Paula A. Franzese, a law professor at Seton Hall University who helped toughen New Jerseys ethics laws in 2005 and chaired the ethics commission for years. She called on state lawmakers to reform the watchdog agency and lessen the governors control over it.
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/04/former_watchdogs_accuse_christie_of_interfering_with_state_ethics_agency.html#incart_flyout_politics