This is a case where the lawyer letter from Wildstein's lawyer is deliberately vague so as to not implicate or inculpate the client.  Wildstein is trolling desperately for (a) immunity and (b) getting his legal fees indemnified by the Port Authority.  His basic argument is "I was doing what I was within the scope of my employment" and therefore my fees should be paid.  FWIW, Wildstein's lawyer - Alan Zegas, is one of the better criminal defense lawyers in North Jersey and has been for going on 30 years.  So, I'll go with this being a very calculuated move to get to indemnification and keep the fire burning under Christie's ass.

I would not be surprised if Wildstein deliberately held back some documents in his subpoena response.  This, for three reasons.  First, you're not going to give up your crown jewels and thereby (a) kill any negotiating leverage you might have and (b) let the others (folks you may need to roll on) build their self-exculpatory stories around what you reveal.  Second,  you're not going to tend to incriminate yourself - which is what I suppose the documents show.  Third, you want to have a story to tell if and when you get to (a) an impeachment hearing or (b) your criminal trial.

Recall, also, that NJ's state Constitution both makes pretty explicit that impeachment and criminal proceedings are independent of each other, and that officeholders can be impeached up to 2 years after the end of their term.

In particular, this point "(b) let the others (folks you may need to roll on) build their self-exculpatory stories around what you reveal" is quite important.  Bridget Kelly retained Gold Bars Luskin to defend her.  We all (those of us who've been around TalkLeft a while, anyway) remember how Luskin came up with someone who sort-of said they kinda remembered meeting Karl Rove in a bar and had some exculpatory story to tell about what they talked about, how Valerie Plame's secret job was common knowledge around DC.  That story was enough, we discovered when the judicial opinions were un-redacted, to move Rove from the category of "suspect" (he was named as such alongside Scooter Libby in the judicial opinion) to not.  

One wonders where Bridget Kelly came up with the doubtless-huge retainer Luskin commands and where she came up with the idea to hire him out of all the attorneys in the world.  My suspcion there is that the Republican party - possibly Rove or someone close to him - decided to build their firewall around Christie at Kelly.  Recall, back in 2006 Christie was one of the US Attorneys on Kyle Sampson's draft "fire" list for being insufficiently predatory on Democrats.  Those paying attention then will remember that, after grand jury subpoenas started landing, very publicly, all over Bob Menendez' senate re-election campaign (well within the usual "grace period" designed to avoid affecting elections), Christie's name was removed from the "Fire" list.  

In this regard, Christie's attacks on the strongest points of his opposition are straight out of Rove's playbook.  Not only is he going after his handpicked man at the Port Authority, but there's now also a lawsuit pending against the Hoboken Mayor and City by someone claiming they were lined up for firing and just happened to be wearing a wire when the converations all went on and all within the last couple weeks.

Right now, this is first and foremost a political issue, and not a criminal one -- at least, not yet, anyway. I've been involved in state-level politics and government for a long time, Jeralyn, and I'd like to think that I have a pretty good idea how your average governor's office operates. And quite frankly, Christie's version of events flies in the face of everything I know about that subject.

There were simply too many other senior staffers working in the governor's chambers at the Statehouse, whom we know for a fact had been kept in the loop -- thanks to all the e-mail traffic -- as this incident and scandal unfolded. This includes Christie's incoming chief of staff, his campaign manager, his chief counsel and his communications director, not to mention his three appointees to the Port Authority, who were Wildstein, Michael Baroni and Authority Chair David Samson.

You mean to tell me that not a single one of these people would have brought this issue to the governor's attention -- particularly when the State Senate Majority Leader was up in arms over the Ft. Lee traffic debacle because that's her district, and the Port Authority executive director had launched an internal investigation into the matter because his own authority had been circumvented?

I'm sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It flies in the face of both reason and long-established executive protocols, and Gov. Christie insults my intelligence with his woebegone tale of earnest ignorance. We've arrived at a zero-sum moment in this story, because only one of these people can be telling the truth here. And were I a betting man, my money would be on Wildstein and not Christie.

If Christie really didn't know, then his entire political raison d'etre of competence and forthrightness has been exposed as a lie. If he doesn't resign, then he'll most certainly be the lamest of ducks with very little clout.

But if Wildstein is telling the truth, and he and Ms. Kelly testify before the Legislature's investigating committee in the coming weeks that Gov. Christie did know what was going on, and there are others who will back them up, then Christie's two-hour December 2013 press conference is reduced to a grotesque display of political bull$H!+ as performance art, and he should be impeached and removed for a wanton and egregious abuse of power, including lying to the state legislature.