Chris Christie says that he is “responsible” and that he “was blindsided” by officials in his administration closing traffic lanes to punish his political opponents:
“I don’t want any of you to confuse what I’m saying this morning. Ultimately I am responsible for what happens under my watch, the good and the bad, and when mistakes are made, then I have to own up to them and take the action that I believe is necessary in order to remediate them. As I mentioned to you earlier I spent all day yesterday digging into, talking to folks and getting to the bottom of things.
“I know there was much discussion yesterday about, what was I doing? Well, let me tell you, everybody. I was blindsided yesterday morning. I was done with my workout yesterday morning and got a call from my communications director at about 8:50, 8:55, informing me of a story that had just broken on tthe Bergen Record website. That was the first time I knew about this. It was the first time I had seen any of the documents that were revealed yesterday. Before i came out and spoke to all of you, I wanted to do the best I could to try to get to the bottom on some of this so when it came out I could answer questions as best I can, and take appropriate action, if action was necessary.”
