Random Friday video:"Bridgeghazi" by Old Fart Rants

Fox: Where The Chris Christie Scandal Is Really Just About Benghazi

EMILY ARROWOOD/Media Matters For America:

Fox News can't seem to talk about the Chris Christie bridge closure scandal without invoking Benghazi.

Fox & Friends devoted five segments during its January 10 broadcast to the growing scandal surrounding Republican Gov. Chris Christie and his administration's involvement in deliberate traffic gridlock across the George Washington Bridge as political retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee, NJ.

But in every segment purporting to discuss Christie, the hosts and guests used the story to attack President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by bringing up the September 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya.  

Right-wing media figures have attempted to deflect from the Christie saga by attacking Obama and Clinton with tired myths, a tactic Fox's coverage took to new heights today. But the network's dogged determination to tie Benghazi to the Christie story is contextualized by new revelations about Fox News chairman Roger Ailes and his focus on influencing national politics.

Ailes has long expressed a love for Christie and reportedly lobbied hard for him to throw his hat in the ring for the 2012 presidential race. As a New York Times article on the upcoming biography of Ailes explained, he aimed in 2012 to use Fox News to "elect the next president."

Media critics have already begun speculating that Fox's scant coverage of the Christie scandal the day it broke is evidence of a motivation to protect Christie's political brand before the 2016 election. The network's attempt to hide Christie behind Benghazi only strengthens that view. 

Rachel Maddow: Fort Lee’s mayor? No, there was another target of Bridge-gate

By Arturo Garcia/Raw Story

Rachel Maddow speculated on Thursday that the traffic closures that nearly shut down Fort Lee, New Jersey for four days at the behest of Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) ex-deputy chief of staff weren’t an act of revenge against the town’s mayor, but against Democratic state Sen. Loretta Weinberg.

“The leader of the Senate Democrats represents Fort Lee,” Maddow explained. “Roughly 12 hours after Governor Christie blows up at the Senate Democrats and torpedoes the career of a [state] Supreme Court justice who he likes because he says the Senate Democrats are ‘animals,’ and he is not going to let that justice lose to those animals, the leader of those ‘animals’ sees her district get the order of destruction from Governor Christie’s deputy chief of staff.

Christie said on Thursday he fired the staffer who gave the order, Bridget Anne Kelly. But Maddow pointed out that Kelly’s e-mail directive to a Christie appointee, David Wildstein, calling for “traffic problems in Fort Lee” was sent the morning of Aug. 13, 2013, leading to traffic on the George Washington Bridge nearly grinding to a halt for a four-day period the following month.

Kelly’s email was sent less than 24 hours after the governor complained about Democratic Senate “animals” forcing him to withdraw his re-election nomination for state Justice Helen Hoens in response to their stonewalling of high court nominees.

Senate Democrats were already blocking Christie’s nominees to the court after he refused to nominate a Democratic Justice, John Wallace, for re-election, a decision which, while not illegal under state law, was still unprecedented.

Maddow also noted that both Christie and Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich (D) had refuted the prevailing theory behind the lane closures — that they were a shot at Sokolich for refusing to endorse Christie — when they said in separate interviews that Christie never even pursued his endorsement during his successful re-election campaign.

“Or maybe it was about that endorsement,” Maddow said. “Until someone who knows the actual truth about this speaks it remains a wide-open question, and maybe the key to this whole story.”

Watch Maddow’s analysis, as aired on Thursday, below.

Not An Isolated Incident: Christie Has Been Repeatedly Accused Of Political Retribution

BY ADAM PECK AND JOSH ISRAEL/Think Progress

At a morning press conference on Thursday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced that he had fired Bridget Anne Kelly, a deputy chief of staff and top aide in his administration, for her role in the growing scandal involving the manufactured delays on the George Washington Bridge in an apparent act of political retribution and asked another aide not to seek a top position within the state Republican party.

He denied having advance knowledge about the lane closures or the involvement of his own staff. “I was blindsided yesterday morning,” he said. “I apologize to the people of Fort Lee, I apologize members of the state legislature.” Christie also faced questions about his abrasive leadership style that some have described as bullying, and insisted that those characterizations are untrue.

“This is the exception,” he said. “It is not the rule of what’s happened over the last four years in the administration.”

But while Christie claimed that this was “not the way this administration has conducted itself over the last four years” and denied being a bully, accusations of political retribution have long surrounded the governor. For instance, former Gov. Richard Codey (D) accused the Christie administration of “sending a message” by denying him state trooper protection after he publicly disagreed with Christie. The same day, a Codey cousin was fired from his position at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a former Codey aide was removed from the New Jersey Office of Consumer Affairs.

After then State Sen. Sean Kean (R) told a reporter that Christie erred in not calling for a state of emergency sooner, during a 2010 blizzard, Christie’s staff banned Kean from attending the next news conference Christie held in Kean’s home district. A Christie aide told the Star-Ledger that Kean “got what he deserved.” Rutgers Professor Alan Rosenthal saw his state funding slashed after backing a re-districting map more favorable to Democrats and last year, confirmation of a judicial candidate recommended by State Sen. Christopher “Kip” Bateman (R) suddenly stalled after the legislator voted against Christie’s public medical education system reorganization.

On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey announced that he would be opening up another investigation into the lane closings, joining the state legislature and the inspector general of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who are conducting investigations of their own.