For immediate release:
A debate over secrecy and Gov. Chris Christie’s safety took a strange turn in the Labor Day weekend traffic.
Citing security concerns, the New Jersey governor refuses to release records showing which hotels he stayed during official trips. Yet his press office publicly identified which vehicle in the governor’s motorcade usually carries Christie.
Christie typically rides in the lead sports utility vehicle which is closely followed by a second SUV, both driven by New Jersey State Police troopers dressed in plain clothes, spokesman Michael Drewniak told the Star-Ledger.
Drewniak was explaining a traffic incident Monday near Seaside Park in which the second SUV in the governor’s entourage allegedly cut off another motorist. No accident, arrests or citations were reported.
Meanwhile, the governor’s office is trying to block release of records that identify where Christie stayed at taxpayers’ expense in 2012 and 2013. The lodging receipts are among the documents sought by a New Jersey Watchdog reporter in a public records suit against the governor’s office filed in Mercer County Superior Court.
“In the opinion of the State Police, releasing that information could put the governor’s physical safety in danger,” argued Deputy Attorney General Todd Wigder last week in a brief to Judge Mary C. Jacobson.
The state’s reasons why those hotel records should be secret are also secret, detailed in a hush-hush certification by Kevin Cowan, acting State Police captain.
Concealing the records from the public could hide possible abuses by Christie, who has argued that he is exempt from his administration’s travel rules for state officials.
The full story is now online at http://watchdog.org/168335/christie-safety-detour/.
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