Over the last couple of weeks, rather than answer questions, Chris Christie’s responses have been “I made a mistake” or “I didn’t know”.
Well Chris, my 3 questions are:
- What would make you think its appropriate to have stock in a firm while your office is investigating it?
- Are there a set of rules for you and another set for everyone else?
- Was Bo Vastine one of your advisors?
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Here is the article from the Star Ledger.
Christie defends interest in firm
Josh Margolin and Claire Heinin
STATEHOUSE AND CLAIRE HEININGER
Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie acknowledged yesterday he bought and sold stock in a travel and real estate company while it was under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office he led at the time.
Christie purchased shares of Cendant Corp. in 2004 and sold them in 2005, according to financial disclosure reports he filed with the Justice Department. In 2002, his office had renewed an investigation into Cendant, leading to fraud convictions of two of its former top executives in 2005 and 2007.
Asked about the investment during a news conference yesterday, Christie acknowledged seeing it on his disclosure reports but said his financial adviser bought and sold the stocks without his knowledge. He said he did not recall the precise value of the stock, which the forms show in the $1,000 to $15,000 range at both the time of purchase and sale. The disclosure forms don't require exact figures, just ranges.
"The way my investments work, I had no authority to order either the buying or the selling of any particular stock," Christie said. "I was not making the decision to buy or the decision to sell."
Democrats -- who had spent days defending a hedge fund investment by Gov. Jon Corzine -- were quick to accuse Christie yesterday of a double standard on financial entanglements.
"Christie has been pushing crazy conspiracies trying to create the appearance of a conflict where there is none for Jon Corzine, and this is an actual conflict," Corzine spokesman Sean Darcy said yesterday.
The stock was purchased in December 2004 and sold in August 2005, Christie campaign spokeswoman Maria Comella said.
Christie has previously said he uses a financial adviser but kept "an eye on" the stocks chosen to avoid conflicts with investigations and "to make sure that we weren't in anything that we had a problem with."
Christie told reporters yesterday his office had continued the investigation into Cendant as part of a probe conducted by his predecessor in 1998. He said the only thing prosecutors did related to Cendant during his time as U.S. Attorney was to pursue former executives who had already been charged and had left the company.
"Cendant was not a party to anything we were doing in the office," Christie said yesterday.
In 2002, he said federal prosecutors were "taking a fresh look at the entire case" of the 1998 multibillion-dollar meltdown of Cendant. His campaign website now says he "reopened" the Cendant investigation and "was able to finally convict the two "architects' that originally got away."
In March 2005, Christie's office filed a motion to intervene in a civil case against former Cendant Chairman Walter Forbes, citing his upcoming retrial on criminal charges.
The Cendant case was among the first in a series of corporate accounting scandals that sparked outrage from investors. Cendant was based in Parsippany at the time of the fraud and still has offices there, though it is now based in New York. Two of the company's former executives, Forbes and Vice Chairman Kirk Shelton, were sentenced to jail time as a result of the investigation conducted by Christie's office.
Christie has previously said he does not handle his own investments, relinquishing management to a professional from Goldman Sachs. Discussing his finances during a lengthy Star-Ledger interview earlier this year, Christie stressed he tried to avoid conflicts of interest.
He said during that interview that he decided midway through his tenure as U.S. attorney to put most of his investments in group investments like hedge funds and mutual funds, so "I'm not owning anything individually that we might be investigating or somehow impacting."
Before that, Christie said, he would "keep an eye on" the stocks chosen by the money manager "to make sure that we weren't in anything that we had a problem with." He said he didn't give guidelines to the manager because that could have tipped him off to investigations.
Christie's investment came under scrutiny as the candidates' personal finances have become an issue in the governor's race. Republicans this week have criticized Corzine over his stake in TPG-Axon, a private hedge fund founded by the corporate owner of four New Jersey casinos. Corzine says there is no conflict of interest because TPG-Axon is not invested in the state-regulated casinos.
Christie yesterday stepped up his assault on Corzine's investments, saying TPG-Axon is invested in a casino project in Macau, China. TPG-Axon spokesman Chris Kittredge said "Governor Corzine is not invested in the Fisherman's Wharf project in Macau through TPG-Axon."
©2009 Star Ledger
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