| Back in May, Assemblyman Rick Merkt dropped the bombshell that John Inglesino (the same person that was in the middle of the pay to play corruption deals where Christie handed his firm a lucrative no bid contract and then Inglesino raised and donated many thousands to Christie's campaign) tried to bribe him out of the Governor's race with a "major position" in the Christie campaign/administration.
And as reported yesterday by Matt Friedman over at PolitickerNJ, there is renewed calls for Attorney General Anne Milgram to open up an investigation into these allegations - allegations that have also resulted in NJ politicians facing years in prison for the exact same thing - trying to offer an opponent a job if they were to drop out of a race.
What makes this even more interesting is that the republican Assembly Minority Leader, Alex DeCroce, issued a press release calling for a special session of the NJ Legislature to investigate corruption in order to "restore public trust": "People are disgusted that more and more public officials are betraying their trust. Lips service and inaction only feeds their growing cynicism. We must act now."
DeCroce demanded that Corzine order both houses of the Legislature to reconvene this summer to pass tougher ethics laws and penalties for corrupt public officials.
What makes this interesting is that DeCroce is a republican in the Assembly, as is Merkt. And there was a first hand account by that republican Assemblyman (Merkt) that an attempted bribery or buy-off was made to him with respect to a political race - especially one where a very similar act resulted in prosecution for corruption and potential prison time. I submit that DeCroce's call to investigate corruption and restore the public trust include looking into attempts to bribe his fellow republican Assemblyman. After all, if he is truly serious about cleaning up corruption in NJ, then he should realize that this is not a partisan issue.
Chris Christie is running on a theme of "changing Trenton", and on a very undeserved reputation with respect to corruption. Let them both put actions behind their empty rhetoric and if there is nothing to Merkt's own allegations, then so be it. But to ignore or call this "political" - especially when it is all within the republican Party, is not just hypocritical - it is a potential cover up of a very serious crime.
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* of course, DeCroce only called for things that didn't directly impact his party or his party's nominee for Governor. This is typical whining and hypocrisy, but DeCroce should be called on it. If he is serious about corruption, then let him show it. Otherwise, he should be served a heaping portion of STFU. |
