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Article IndexBY TOM HESTER SR.
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
After guiding an historic roundup of allegedly corrupt public officials that reached from the Assembly chamber to the mayors' offices in Hoboken, Secaucus, and Ridgefield to third string Jersey City inspectors, New Jersey's top federal lawmen stood before a pack of reporters and TV cameras Thursday and took turns calling on the public to rise up against corruption.
"New Jersey's corruption problem is one of the worst, if not the worst, in the nation,'' said FBI Assistant Especial Agent Ed Kahrer. "Corruption has become ingrained in New Jersey's political system and the impact it has on New Jersey is profound.''
In detailing the depth of the corruption uncovered in an ongoing 10-year investigation, Kahrer, Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph J Marra Jr., Internal Revenue Service Acting Special Julio LaRosa and FBI Special Agent Weysan Dun stopped just short of urging New Jerseyans to go to their windows, lean out and shout, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.''
Kahrer's comment that New Jersey could be the most corrupt state in the nation made the ABC national evening news.And one of the first questions for Marra, who was appointed by President Obama, was how much a role former New Jersey U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for governor, played in the investigation before leaving office in December.
Marra realized the political ramifications of his response. He paused, chose his words carefully, and said only that the long investigation had run through Christie's tenure and now it was ongoing during his own tenure.
Actually, Christie can be credited with bagging 130 corrupt public officials. There was never an acquittal.
Thursday was a good day for Chris Christie.
By Friday his campaign released a new TV ad touting his corruption-busting background.
"As U.S. attorney, I put corrupt public officials in jail - Republicans and Democrats,‘' Christie declares as the ad opens. Christie goes on to promise to "change Trenton'' with "the same tough, independent decisions‘' that he made as a federal prosecutor.
At a campaign stop in West New York, he declined to speculate on the timing of the roundup.
Thursday was not a good day for Gov. Jon Corzine.
As the Democratic governor, who is seeking a second term, joined in the call to end corruption, a key cabinet member, Community Affairs Commissioner Joseph Doria quickly resigned as federal agents carried computers and boxes from his Trenton office and Bayonne home. Doria has not been charged in the investigation.
All this with Christie's lead over Corzine among potential voter growing wider with each new poll. The latest poll puts Christie 15 percentage points ahead.
On Saturday, Corzine will be looking for positive news for his campaign. He is expected to name 74-year-old Sen. Loretta Weinberg, (D-Bergen) as his candidate for lieutenant governor at an announcement in Bergen County.
Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union), state Democratic chairman, said Friday he sees the federal roundup as a bipartisan scandal that does not benefit either candidate.
"Nobody, absolutely nobody, questions Governor Corzine's ethics and honesty,'' he said. "From our standpoint, this election is still about the economy, education and the future of New Jersey. And from our standpoint, I promise you people will question Chris Christie's awarding of no-bid contracts and his deferred prosecution agreements and the handling of his office.''
The Corzine campaign has been attacking Christie's role as U.S. attorney, charging he awarded millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to Republican colleagues.
Prof. Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said the naming of his lieutenant governor candidate was to top off a period in which Obama campaigned for Corzine in Holmdel and the governor traveled to Washington to push for gun control.
Instead, Dworkin said, the Corzine's campaign news has been dominated by the corruption roundup and his seemingly inability to settle on a running mate.
But Dworkin said the over three months remaining in the campaign gives Corzine time to overcome Christie's lead.
"The whole thing is a net gain for Christie. I don‘t see how it can be interpreted any other way,'' said Rutgers Political Science Professor Ross Baker. "Nobody questions Governor Corzine's personal integrity but this brings up what he has to do as governor to handle the political bosses.
"For Christie, this benefits him because of his career as a prosecutor,'' Baker said. "These charges brought by on of his predecessors underscores that corruption continues in Ne w Jersey and if you care about that, having a governor who is against corruption is not a bad idea.''