As Chris Christie digs a deeper hole explains himself over the warrantless monitoring that his office did, he has (as with no-bid contracts and so many other "explanations" for prior actions) given few answers while raising a number of potentially serious questions about the warrantless monitoring and the actions of his office.
For starters, Christie said the following (emphasis mine): Christie said his office did "everything within the law" and got court permission to track "fugitives or violent felons" -- two groups of people who he said were primary targets. Very few terrorism-related subjects were tracked in that way, he said.
We were also told the following just a few days earlier: The documents released by the ACLU say the U.S. Attorney's office in New Jersey identified 79 such cases on or after Sept. 12, 2001 -- 66 of which resulted in a criminal prosecution.
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Christie said the technology was used to track terrorism suspects, as well as those suspected of other crimes.
So....initially, it was used to track terrorism suspects "and others", but suddenly, it was rarely used to track terrorism suspects.
Question 1: Why the contradiction over what this was primarily used for? Was it used to track terrorism suspects, as originally trumpeted, or was it used for "very few terrorism related suspects", as per Christie's backpeddling a few days later?
Question 2: If this was really used to track "fugitives and violent felons", as indicated in the first apparent clarification, why (as noted in the Daily Record) didn't Christie's office bother to obtain a warrant - since it would seem to be easy to clear the hurdle if Christie knew they were fugitives or violent felons?
Question 3: If this resulted in close to 100 prosecutions, how many prosecutions resulted in convictions?
Question 4: How many of the fugitives were caught as a result of this warrantless monitoring?
Question 5: If they weren't all caught, what does that say about Christie's ability or the warrantless monitoring program in general, when cell phone GPS tracking can locate such fugitive or violent felon to within a few feet?
Question 6: Of those caught or convicted, how many fugitives were caught or "violent felons/terrorism suspects" were convicted based on evidence obtained by warrantless monitoring?
Question 7:With the ever shifting description of the targets of warrantless monitoring, Christie not only needs to come clean as to who was targeted but to identify those who were captured, convicted or jailed from this warrantless monitoring.
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This is about character and a lack of trustworthiness. Christie is running specifically on his record as US Attorney, and has done absolutely nothing to convince NJ voters that he has any real concrete plan to help the economy (unlike Corzine, who was ahead of the curve with his own stimulus plan for the State last year). With each passing week, we find out more cracks in his ethical armor - whether it be (1) his settlement for libel and admission of defaming a political opponent's character or (2) the no-bid contracts or (3) the questionable circumstances surrounding his non-investigation of Menendez before the 2006 Senatorial Race, (4) leading to getting off of the list of US Attorneys to be fired to (5) whether the hundreds of thousands of donations to the republican party helped his brother escape prosecution for securities fraud when Christie was US Attorney.
And now, with the warrantless monitoring, Christie's explanations and lashing out not only don't add up, they create more questions about his motives and agenda. |
