city, in large part because that infrastructure is terrible and everybody in new jersey blames christie for it because he did individually, single-handedly, stopped something that would have made it better. so this stuff from home tends to follow these guys around. he s trying to run a national campaign for the presidency, but he s dealing with editorials like this one in the largest paper in his home state today. look at this. this is from the largest paper, the the newark star ledger. governor christie today is finally attending a high-level meeting to discuss the need for new rail tunnel. what woke him from his five-year slumber? maybe it was the agonized cries of stranded commuters during this hellish summer or the fresh warnings of economic carnage should the old tunnels give out before the new ones are built. or the shock therapy of the nation s highest transit official calling his neglect, quote, almost criminal. maybe he heard a whisper from some deep corner of his soul
cover because the fire was at the transcript s offices. it was in the newspaper s office. the building was a total loss. the staff salvaged one computer and a couple of hard drives. everything else used to create the newspaper was gone. that paper has been there more than 130 years. we can tell you within 48 hours of their building burning to the ground, the staff of the new rockford transcript was back at it working on the next edition of the paper, and that s because the transcript has friends. local real estate company gave them temporary office space. the transcript s publisher says ten other newspapers offered office equipment and anything else they needed. they started rolling out pages of the new edition yesterday. monday, after the fire completely destroyed their offices on saturday. the transcript s general manager, amy, sent us this video showing us the burnt-out office and taking the short walk to their new space where the staff is working on the next issue.
2011. it mentions chip michaels twice. first mention indicates he has just left the emergency services unit command and the second mention is an announcement that lieutenant chip michaels has joined the george washington bridge command. a transfer, by the way, came in the same general period of time that wildstein and bill baroni were installed as chris christie s point men at the port authority. now why is this so interesting? why should you care if lieutenant thomas chip michaels is the guy who gave wildstein a tour as traffic hell was setting in on ft. lee? this is a january 2010 story in the newark star ledger when when christie was about to become governor. there s a quote from someone who has known him since their childhood in livingston. break his chops a little bit, just saying you re the governor, looking at him, laughing, said chip michaels who along with his brothers grew up with christie. it s crazy. he grew up like everyone else in
politics has played absolutely no role in disaster recovery. but new jersey s largest paper, the newark star ledger said christie used sandy money as a political slush fund, and says, quote, this was about politics and that is simply wrong. sandy victims everywhere should be furious. joining me now is bob ingle. he is author of chris christie: the inside story of his rise to power. bob, first, thanks for being here tonight. glad to be here, rev. how serious are all of these questions about the sandy relief funds? i think it s very serious. but one thing you have to keep in mind, you know how federal regulations are, you get a stack about that high. and within that, the locals are given a lot of leeway to do things as they want to do. sure. now what the administration has said and what you just repeated is there is no politics
it involves a law that was created last year to prevent the misuse and abuse of sandy money. it is a law that as far as we can tell the christie administration has at best been slow and complying with and at worst has intentionally dragged its feet on implementing. this has contributed to a series of stories that have called into question how christie s team has managed and spent the giant pot of sandy money they received from the federal government last year. we are going to explain that fully and we ll tell you about the major role that the governor s brother plays in all of this in just a minute. understand what this is all about. we are going to start with a story that made news this week. it was reported on tuesday night by the newark star ledger that christie had aggressively pushed $6 million in sandy money for the development of a senior citizen housing complex in bellville, new jersey. a gritty town of about 36,000 just outside newark, was not