Former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie is finding out that running for Governor comes with a lot of public scrutiny — more than being U.S. Attorney. And as the race heats up, it’s likely to intensify.
By ANGELA DELLI SANTI
The Associated Press
TRENTON – Former U.S. attorney Christopher Christie, who is running for governor as a Republican in New Jersey, defended handing a multi-million-dollar, no bid contract to an ex-federal prosecutor who declined to criminally prosecute Christie’s brother on stock fraud charges two years earlier.
“We made the selections based upon who we thought were the most qualified, the best, to be able to execute these jobs,” Christie said of the lawyers he hand-picked to receive lucrative federal monitoring contracts.
The leading candidate for New Jersey’s Republican gubernatorial nomination called a news conference Monday to address growing concerns over his use of deferred prosecution agreements while serving as U.S. attorney.
The agreements are settlements between the government and a corporation accused of wrongdoing that use a monitor to resolve white-collar crime allegations without a federal trial.
Christie chose David Kelley in 2007 to help oversee an out-of-court settlement with five medical device manufacturers implicated in a doctor kickback scheme. Two years earlier as U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Kelley investigated a stock fraud case in which 20 traders including Christie’s younger brother, Todd, were accused of improper trading. Todd Christie was one of five traders not charged criminally; his company paid a civil penalty of $16.5 million.
Christie Says Don’t Make My Brother an Issue (Philadelphia Inquirer)
