A former aide to then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) whose conviction in the “Bridgegate” scandal was overturned by Supreme Court will run for local office.
Bridget Kelly announced her campaign for Bergen County clerk Tuesday on “Good Day New York.”
“I have been in public for 20 years, prior to the seven-year legal nightmare and … I truly enjoy being a public servant,” she said on the program. “The clerk’s office is truly a customer service role, it’s something I believe I could do and I could do better than it’s being done now.”
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Kelly wrote in an email before the closure of three lanes on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge after Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich (D) declined to endorse Christie’s reelection bid in 2013. In 2016, a jury convicted her on nine charges in connection with the scandal and she was sentenced to 13 months in prison.
However, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned her conviction in 2020 along with that of her fellow former aide Bill Baroni.
“Not every corrupt act by state or local officials is a federal crime,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote at the time.
“I’m in this to win it,” Kelly said on “Good Day New York.” “And I would hope that those people that spent the last seven years gleefully watching me be destroyed are the same ones that understand that I unanimously won at the United States Supreme Court, [and] would just realize my life deserves to go on, too.”
While Christie, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and has said he is considering a 2024 bid, has long denied knowledge of the alleged conspiracy, Kelly has said she was scapegoated and had no power to order the lane closures on her own.
“I don’t know that Christie honestly thought that I would take it as far as I did. I don’t think he thought I had it in me to really stand up and tell the truth, which would then lead everybody to know what they already knew, which was that he was involved,” Kelly told Elle in a new interview. “So I think he was probably a little surprised. And I think to this day, he sees me as the one who ruined his path to the presidency.”