Feds Investigating Christie Use Of Sandy Relief Funds

by JASmius

$64 dollar question of the day: Is Chris Christie a crook, or has Barack Obama sprung another of his, er, "[S]and[y] traps"?:

Federal investigators have launched an inquiry into whether New Jersey Governor Chris Christie improperly used Superstorm Sandy relief funds to produce tourism ads that featured him and his family during his re-election campaign.

According to CNN, federal auditors will examine the use of $25 million in public funds for a marketing campaign aimed at reviving tourism on the Jersey Shore after major parts of the coastline had been decimated in the 2012 storm....

Well, now.  That appears....not all that unusual.  Out here on the left coast, I vividly remember California tourism ads that prominently featured then-Governor Arnold Schwartzeneggar and his then-wife Maria; what I don't remember is precisely when they aired.  Point being, there is legit precedent for this sort of thing, but one would have expected someone as ostensibly savvy as Double-C to pick up on the timing of the tourism spots during his re-election bid being something any Democrat could easily get away with but no Republican could ever unscathedly survive.

The stench of the political setup nature of this latest Donk scandalmongering sortie becomes powerfully whiff with the disclosure of the following nugget:

New Jersey Democrat Representative Frank Pallone prompted the Superstorm Sandy inquiry after asking the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in August to examine how Christie spent the marketing money approved by the department.

"This was money that could have directly been used for Sandy recovery. And, as you know, many of my constituents still haven't gotten the money that is owed them to rebuild their homes or raise their homes or to help," Pallone told CNN.

Pallone cited concerns about the bidding process for the firm that was awarded the marketing plan after it charged the state roughly $4.7 million, about $2 million more than the next lowest bidder, according to CNN. The winning bid featured Christie and his family in advertisements while the losing proposal did not.

Pallone told CNN that a preliminary review of the spending has already been concluded and that there was enough evidence to launch a full-scale investigation into the use of the funds.

Well, now.  That appears....suspicious.  A New Jersey Democrat congresscritter asks a Democrat Regime to quietly start "preliminarily probing" a New Jersey Republican governor as the latter's re-election campaign enters its home stretch at right about the same time that local Democrats begin quietly probing the "Bridgegate" affair, and now that the latter has been detonated, here goes the other one within not even a full week.  And, shazam, the Regime concludes that there's enough "evidence of wrongdoing" to launch a splashily public full-scale investigation.

The Dems must be convinced that the Big Man is not just a bona fide threat to Hillary Clinton or Brian Schweitzer or Andrew Cuomo in 2016, but a prohibitive one as well.  So he must be pre-emptively annihilated now.

Not that there isn't some "just because" motivation as well.  There always is.  But in Governor Christie's case, there's more than a little ass-biting karma involved.  As I've said here and on the podcast, I didn't appreciate his timing, but I could understand why he made a strong appeal for federal disaster funds after Hurricane Sandy.  He's the governor of New Jersey, it was pretty much the bullseye for the "super-storm," and he's always maintained that he'll do whatever he can for his state.  He took a lot of heat for doing so so publicly, visibly canoodling with The One just a week before the latter's re-election and boosting his "presidentiality" at the worst possible time for fellow Pachyderm Mitt Romney's White House chances.  But Sandy hit when it hit; Christie didn't schedule its landfall.  Jerseyans were suffering and in dire need, and waiting to lobby for federal disaster relief until after November 6th, 2012 would have opened him up to charges of putting "partisan politics" ahead of the people of his own state at the worst possible time in relation to his own 2013 re-election campaign. 

Nobody can doubt that the Dems would have used that as a truncheon to bludgeon Double-C all year long and perhaps topple him even with as weak a challenger as they did field.  So what did they do instead?  Pocket the Big Man's propaganda generosity, use it to dispatch Governor Romney, and lard New Jersey with enough fiscal rope to hang Governor Christie when the time was right.  And that time, quite evidently, is now.

As is always the case when an elected Republican gets into hot water, whether there is actual wrongdoing or it's a trumped-up partisan witchhunt is largely irrelevant; it's what the Donks do with it that matters.  The media will hype it to the ends of the cosmos, grotesquely exaggerate any real transgressions and make 'em up if there aren't any, and firmly scorch into the airy minds of LIVs and NIVs that the man the media themselves proclaimed the 2016 GOP frontrunner only two months ago (also part of the trap, I'm convinced) is a "crook" and a "typical Republican fat[ahem]cat" and an outstanding example of just the kind of "Man" that Dear Leader is "fighting against" on behalf of "working American families". (Which, as an added bonus, now qualify for the endangered species list on both ends of the term) Not only is their biggest perceived 2016 threat destroyed, but they'll use it to maximum effect to nationalize this year's midterm elections around not ObamaCare, but "the Republican 'sleaze factor'" or "income inequality" or whatever other hand-waving distraction they can conjure up.

I wouldn't vouch for the viability of that strategy this November, but as for crippling Chris Christie, that mission is probably already accomplished, even if he's squeaky clean with soft, fragrant skin besides.  Let this serve as yet another cautionary tale to every last one of us right-of-centerers, grassroots to "establishment" and every nook & cranny & backwater in-between, of the rank folly of "working" or "cooperating" or "compromising" or otherwise climbing into bed with any Democrat for any purpose on anything.  Because, as the Big Man has now discovered to his lasting chagrin, they are our enemies, not our friends, and will always use our "bipartisan" impulses to destroy us.

I wonder what the Guv will do with all those glossies of him and King Hussein yukking it up on the tarmac.  I'd suggest scotch-taping them to his dinner placemats, myself.