NEWARK, N.J. — Federal prosecutors in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing case want to keep evidence they’ve gathered over the last year and a half from being made public.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Newark filed a motion Tuesday seeking a protective order for the evidence, referred to as discovery materials, which it described as more than 1.5 million pages of “records, emails, computer data, recordings, telephone records, texts, financial records, materials obtained pursuant to search warrants, the affidavits in support of those search warrants, and other items.”
Two former political allies of Gov. Chris Christie face charges in the case, including wire fraud and deprivation of civil rights. Bridget Kelly was his former deputy chief of staff. Bill Baroni was one of his appointees to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Former Port Authority official David Wildstein, a Christie associate, pleaded guilty this month and said he, Baroni and Kelly concocted the scheme to close access lanes to the bridge from Fort Lee to punish the town’s Democratic mayor for not endorsing Christie’s re-election bid in 2013.