What's Christie Got on Fred Snowflack?

by: huntsu

Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 10:26:04 AM EST

Fred Snowflack is the editor of the Daily Record, the hometown paper of US Attorney Chris Christie. Today Fred ran an unattributed editorial about the $52 million no-bid contract Christie gave to his former boss, John Ashcroft.

Christie, who has done a great job putting political crooks in jail, has earned the privilege of getting the benefit of the doubt. Ashcroft's firm may do a great job for a price that will be much less than $52 million.

May do a great job? Sure, so could a ton of other lawfirms that didn't give Christie a job. And the only evidence Snowflack has that this "will be much less than $52 million" is Chris Christie's word, and that's what is in doubt right now.

Point two on the $52 million is that Snowflack knows government contracts -- particularly no-bid contracts with little external oversight -- usually run over budget not under. Oh, unless it's Super Christie handing out the contract. Because we trust him.

This is about the most blatant case of misdirection I've seen since the Daily Record refused to reveal which story Chris Christie told them about his near-miss in the US Attorney firings.

Snowflack ignores the vast body of evidence out there that Christie bought his job, something that really should be noted when you are talking about sending $52 million contracts to the guy who gave Christie the job. Imagine if a Democrat donated $500K to the state and national party, got a job worth hundreds of thousands, and then gave million dollar no-bid contracts to high-profile Dems? There would be a bloodbath, but for Super Christie he gets a pass.

Snowflack completely ignores that the Bush Justice Department is under a number of investigations into how it used its powers for partisan and personal gain, and that the move to a partisan use of federal policing powers happened under John Ashcroft -- the very guy who got Christie's $52 million contract.

Snowflack also ignores the tendency -- noted on Blue Jersey in the past and on ~~PoliticsNJ~~ PolitickerNJ today the strange tendency of subpoenas, leaks and press releases to come out at times opportune for Christie and the Republicans and damaging to the Democrats.

Snowflack further ignores the Christie hissy fit when a Democrat put a temporary block on the appointment of Stu Abner to the state Supreme Court while totally ignoring a Morris County Republican Senator doing the same thing for the Morris County Prosecutor.

The fact is that Christie doesn't have a clean record anywhere but in the newspapers and editorial pages. He no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt, if he ever did. His office has made a significant dent in the massive problem of public corruption in our state, but also has made a significant dent in the non-partisan image of the US Attorney's office.

huntsu :: What's Christie Got on Fred Snowflack?

Tags: Fred Snowflack, daily record, corruption, Chris Chrsite, (All Tags)

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What's Christie Got on Fred Snowflack? | 4 comments

sounds familiar (0.00 / 0)

Isn't Snowflack doing the same thing vis-a-vis Christie that the national media did during the runup to the war on Iraq? Taking spoonfed information from an "inside authority," failing to check out facts or pursue other information and other leads...reminds me of Judith Miller's "work" for The New York Times.

Perhaps we should refer to him as either "Snowflake" or "Snowflak."

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." (Teddy Roosevelt)

by: DottieG @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 20:13:27 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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Partisan criticisms just don't stick (0.00 / 0)

Mr. Christie is only as partisan as the critics who view him through a dark partisan lens.

This is the guy who threw a gaggle of Monmouth County local Republican officials into the clink. This is the guy who sent the Republican Essex County Executive to the slammer. This is the same super crime fighting sleuth who threw a powerful Passaic County Republican Chairman behind bars.

Some partisan.

by: TerryMalloy-OnTheWaterfront @ Wed Nov 28, 2007 at 05:32:34 AM UTC

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Interesting (4.00 / 1)

The only examples you can come up with are from Christie's early tenure, and started under the previous US Attorney and FBI head.

Muphy was INDICTED in December 2000 and convicted in 2003. It's really reaching to put that notch on Christie's belt.

The Treffinger sting started in early 2000, before the election that put Bush in office and two years before Christie took office. When he came in, the FBI already had more than three dozen examples of Treffinger bragging about taking bribes on tape.

The Monmouth County sting started under the previous US Attorney, and was set up by the FBI well before Christie took office.

Those are the best examples you can come up with?

Had Christie NOT taken these cases to court he would have wound up in jail himself. It would have been massively illegal, so giving him full credit for finishing investigations and court cases that pre-dated his tenure is not that exculpatory.

No one is accusing Christie of throwing cases against Republicans or convicting innocent Democrats. That's a straw man Christie's defenders regularly try to knock down, but it's not what we are saying.

We are saying that he is using his office to influence public discourse and media coverage to his and his party's benefit. And no amount of convictions on either side takes away the evidence that points to this misuse of office.

by: huntsu @ Wed Nov 28, 2007 at 15:12:25 PM UTC

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