Chris Christie 2024?

How the Supreme Court's Bridgegate ruling helps the former governor [View this email in your browser]( [Politics Brief from WNYC + Gothamist] [Keep friends and family informed. Forward the Politics Brief.]( Did The Supreme Court Just Tee Up A Chris Christie 2024 Presidential Run? By [James Ramsay]( [Chris Christie stands on the sidelines at a Dallas Cowboys football game in 2019] Ron Jenkins/AP After the Supreme Court last Thursday unanimously decided to overturn the convictions in the Bridgegate case, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie all but called the whole ordeal a witch hunt. "This was the [Obama]-appointed U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Paul Fishman, who, from the time he got into office and I was elected governor one month thereafter, was looking for a way to go out and get us," [Christie said on Fox News]( moments after the Supreme Court threw out the fraud convictions for two Christie allies involved in the scandal. To recap: In the fall of 2013, while campaigning for reelection as the governor of New Jersey, Christie was already serious about a presidential run for 2016. [Some polls]( were showing him leading the field of potential Republican nominees, and he wanted to be able to present himself as a big-tent candidate who had bipartisan support. So when the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, declined to endorse that 2013 reelection bid, several Christie allies orchestrated debilitating lane closures on the George Washington Bridge. It was an act of political retribution that U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman prosecuted as a fraud case. One conspirator pleaded guilty; two others were tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison. But in the unanimous decision handed down by the Supreme Court last week, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that "the evidence the jury heard no doubt shows wrongdoing — deception, corruption, abuse of power. But the federal fraud statutes at issue do not criminalize all such conduct." Which brings us back to Christie, [who said]( after the decision that Fishman's "prosecutorial misconduct and personal vindictiveness" had "changed the course of history." Not only was Christie in line for a possible GOP presidential nomination before Bridgegate — Christie has also said the scandal was ["a factor"]( in why Donald Trump didn't make him his running mate. "He believes he’s not in the White House right now making decisions because of Paul Fishman," said WNYC's Matt Katz, the author of American Governor: Chris Christie's Bridge to Redemption. Katz told WNYC's Brian Lehrer last week that the Court's decision could put wind behind Christie's sails if he tries to run for president in four years. "I’ve been following this guy for ten years, and my gut tells me that he will definitely try to run in 2024," Katz said. "If anyone asks him in New Hampshire in 2024 about Bridgegate — about this big scandal that collapsed his political career — he can just say, 'Listen, you know what that deep state Department of Justice did to President Trump? Well, I experienced that as well. That’s why we got hammered. And if you believe that Trump was a victim, I’m just like him, and I’m ready to take over that mantle.'" [Hear the entire conversation]( about the Supreme Court's decision between Brian Lehrer and WNYC's Andrea Bernstein and Matt Katz, who won Peabody Awards for their coverage of the Bridgegate scandal. New York's Democratic Presidential Primary Is Back On, For Now First, the New York State Board of Elections [decided to cancel]( the Democratic presidential primary scheduled for June 23rd, citing public health risks. Then, a federal judge ruled late last Tuesday that [the primary still needed to happen]( after Andrew Yang and supporters of Bernie Sanders sued. Now, a federal appeals court will hear the case on Friday, as lawyers representing the state of New York seek to overturn that decision and again cancel the primary. District Judge Analisa Torres, who had given the order to reinstate the primary, said the state's decision would've deprived Democratic voters of the opportunity to elect delegates who could represent their point of view at the party's convention this summer. (If the primary does get cancelled, New York's Democratic Party said it has a proposal — agreed to by the Biden and Sanders campaigns — for how to allocate the state's 184 delegates at the national convention.) Lawyers arguing for the cancellation of the primary say New York would have to hire more than 4,600 poll workers to show up and work in an unsafe environment. Though Gov. Andrew Cuomo changed the rules around absentee ballots to allow anyone to vote by mail, the state would still have to provide in-person voting opportunities for both early voting and Primary Day. An attorney representing delegates for Sanders and Yang has argued that cancelling the primary would depress turnout and unfairly hurt down-ballot candidates running in tight primaries. ([NBC 4 New York]( Today: New Jersey Is Holding Its First Ever Vote-By-Mail Election It's a relatively small Election Day: [33 municipalities]( around the state are holding nonpartisan contests for school board and/or town council seats. In the counties holding elections, registered voters were mailed ballots, along with return envelopes and pre-paid postage. Voters then need to have their ballots sealed and postmarked by midnight tonight for them to count. The largest of these elections is a school board contest in Newark, which required mailing out 295,000 ballots. When asked how that went, Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin told WNYC — trying to put it politely — "we must have a better partnership with the post office." How today's election unfolds should inform how New Jersey uses the mail to hold its July 7th presidential and congressional primaries, which will be open to all of the 6 million registered voters in the state. ([WNYC News]( 'Hold Our Nose And Vote': Dr. Cornel West On The 'Milquetoast Neoliberal' Joe Biden [Cornel West and other supporters at a Bernie Sanders rally in February] Matt Rourke/AP After Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race, one of his well-known surrogates, Dr. Cornel West, threw his support behind Joe Biden. Sort of. "'Endorse' might be too strong a word, my dear sister," West told The Takeaway's Shumita Basu. "I consider my dear brother Joe Biden a mediocre, milquetoast neoliberal, responsible for, in many ways — along with Strom Thurmond and others — the largest, most vicious prison system in the modern world," West said. "That's what those crime bills from the 80s and 90s did, and he bragged about it up until a few years ago. I consider his support of the invasion and occupation of Iraq a crime against humanity. You don't just go in and end up killing half a million precious human beings in Iraq and not have some kind of reflection and deep apology. "I'm calling for us to kind of hold our noses and vote," West continued, "because he seems to be, at this point — even though he's no friend of working people, he's no friend of poor people — [voting for him] seems to be the only thing we can do at this point to get out the neofascist gangster in the White House. That's what it is to be part of an anti-fascist coalition, where many in your coalition are not really your friends, but they're your allies." [Listen to the entire interview with Dr. Cornel West]( who also spoke about the rape accusations against Joe Biden, the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, and the broader state of economic injustice in the United States. [the logo for Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast] Joe Biden's (Not) Rose Garden Strategy Joe Biden isn't staying as quiet as you might think. Still, many Democrats want to see more of their presumptive candidate. What else should he be doing? Support WNYC + Gothamist Make a donation to support local, independent journalism. Your contributions are our largest source of funding and pays for essential election coverage and more. [Donate]( Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: New York Public Radio 160 Varick Street New York, NY 10013 [unsubscribe]( [update preferences]( [privacy policy](