The New Jersey governor’s race decamped to Washington for the day Thursday, as Democrats and Republican Chris Christie sparred at a tense hearing that quickly degenerated into a partisan melee.
Christie, the former U.S. Attorney who leads embattled Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in recent polls, appeared on Capitol Hill ostensibly to testify before the House Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law as an expert witness on the practice of deferred prosecution agreements.
But the hearing was anything but a dry examination of the practice, wherein companies under investigation can be assigned a private attorney as a sort of chaperone, rather than face criminal or civil prosecution.
Christie’s office had arranged seven of the agreements during his tenure as U.S. Attorney, in each case making non-binding attorney recommendations to the noncompliant companies—and Democrats have seized on contracts awarded to former Attorney General John Ashcroft and to an attorney who once investigated Christie’s brother’s firm – and then did not indict Christie’s brother.
Throughout the hearing, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), a vocal Christie critic who is not a subcommittee member, watched from the front row. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) later joined him—the two Democrats have taken an interest in regulating deferred prosecution agreements and non-prosecution agreements in federal criminal cases and have introduced legislation to that effect.
Christie’s decision to appear before the subcommittee was noteworthy in itself: He had previously expressed concern that the hearing would turn into political theater – which it promptly did.
“I look forward to the testimony of Mr. Christie,” said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), the subcommittee chair, in his opening statement. “There’s some information I have that Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, that U.S. Attorney Christie required them to endow a chair in business ethics at his alma mater, Seton Hall. I’m interested to hear about this because if a member of Congress required anybody to endow a chair at a school, there would be outrage.”
Cohen asked Christie if Zimmer, a manufacturer of medical devices, had turned down Christie’s recommendation of Ashcroft as a monitor.
“No, in fact sir, the complete answer to that…” Christie began.
“That’s the complete answer to that,” Cohen interrupted.
“No, no it’s not, sir, it really isn’t,” replied Christie.
The Indiana-based Zimmer company, Christie said, wanted to avoid a “big New York law firm.” Ashcroft, from Missouri, offered the “Midwestern sensibilities” the company was seeking, Christie said.
Cohen pushed on.
“You made an offer they couldn’t refuse,” he said.
Christie objected, and the two ran over each others’ words until Cohen said loudly:
“I’ve got the microphone.”
“Sir, you said that I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse,” Christie said, earning a “That’s right” from Cohen.
“First of all, it’s an ethnically insensitive comment by you, first of all, to an Italian-American and secondly…”
Cohen interjected, “I had no idea were Italian-American…”
Christie again cut him off.
“And secondly, sir, you were not in the room when those negotiations took place, sir,” Christie said. “I was.”
On and on it went.
Cohen was followed by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who then proceeded to needle Cohen for securing an $800,000 earmark for one of the companies Cohen accused Christie of coddling.
The microphone eventually passed to Rep. Bill Delahunt, who prefaced his own acrimonious exchange with Christie by claiming to have had “no idea” Christie was running for governor until Thursday.
The two-and-a-half-hour hearing ended with a flourish—Christie abruptly walked out to catch a train, over the protests of Cohen and amid counter-protests from subcommittee Republicans.
