The Corzine campaign is jumping on the news that Karl Rove and Chris Christie discussed a run for Governor while he was still US Attorney and Rove was in the White House. Before this news, the Corzine campaign had called on US Attorney's office to honor the Freedom of Information requests filed in March and today they followed up on that calling on Christie to respond to the Corzine campaign's request for public documents from his tenure as U.S. Attorney and fully disclose the timing and nature of his contact with Rove. And the DNC also took umbrage with the Christie campaign explanation of the contacts with Rove:
"We already knew that Chris Christie used his position as a US Attorney as a staging ground for his own political career, and now we find out that Christie spoke with disgraced political advisor Karl Rove to discuss running for Governor. This news of Rove's 'career counseling' for Chris Christie is just another troubling example of Christie's use of his office to benefit his own political self interest.
"The Christie campaign's effort to dismiss the Rove-Christie meetings as having had occurred as the 'Bush Administration was winding down' is simply offensive. They can try to spin the meetings as much as they like, but it cannot hide the truth that Christie used his appointed position as a springboard for higher office at the behest of disgraced political shills like Karl Rove," said DNC Spokesman Michael Czin.
We saw huntsu question some of the "facts" the Christie campaign is making up regarding what Rove said earlier. The Corzine campaign put out this web ad highlighting the Rove connection over at Christiefacts.com:Senator Weinberg said that Christie owes it to NJ to clear up the conflicting accounts between Rove's testimony and Christie's explanation:
"First, Karl Rove revealed that Christie solicited his help to run a gubernatorial campaign out of the U.S. Attorney's office," Weinberg said. "Now, Christie is denying that he reached out to Rove for advice. Given the clear disparity between their stories, Christie owes it to the voters of New Jersey to release public documents from his tenure as U.S. Attorney."
I feel comfortable in that Christie will say this is just politics, but something tells me this won't be the last we hear of this story.
