CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: New Jersey Scandals

Interview

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BLITZER: We're joined now by John Wisniewski. He's the deputy speaker of the New Jersey Assembly. He's chairman of the special committee investigating the Christie administration.

Thanks so much for joining us.

You believe this mayor of Hoboken, Dawn Zimmer? Because, as you know her tweets in recent weeks were very, very nice to the governor. She seems to have had some conflicting things earlier. The decision to come out now raising some questions. Do you believe her?

JOHN WISNIEWSKI (D), NEW JERSEY STATE ASSEMBLYMAN: Mayor Zimmer has in the past said very supportive things of the governor, but her allegations are very serious, Wolf.

And I think that the committee has to consider the facts that she's put on the table. I think we need to listen to what the lieutenant governor said. I don't think this is an opportunity to rush to judgment. I think that there are a lot of facts that we don't know and that we need to get to.

But I also want to make it clear the committee is already looking at clear evidence of improper behavior in the governor's office, and we're going to continue to follow that first.

BLITZER: Do you have plans for Mayor Zimmer to testify?

WISNIEWSKI: I think what we're going to do first is have a conversation with her to make sure that we understand all of the accusations being made. Right now, we don't have any plans for her to testify, but we're going to assemble the facts and then make a decision once we know more.

BLITZER: Are there any other mayors, as far as you know, Mr. Speaker, who have come forward with similar kinds of allegations?

WISNIEWSKI: No. There have been no other mayors who have come forward and said anything quite like what Mayor Zimmer said.

You always hear a lot of intimations that things like this have happened, but you never really had anybody come forward to say it. So, she's the first one to make this kind of specific allegation about a specific event with somebody in particular from the governor's administration.

But I just -- I don't think it would be appropriate for the committee to rush to any conclusions. There's a lot we need to learn before we can make any decisions.

BLITZER: You said last week, not involving this Hoboken scandal, but the bridge lane scandal, if you will, that if there are ties to Governor Christie, direct links to Christie, despite his denials, in your words, it clearly becomes an impeachable offense. Explain exactly what you mean here.

WISNIEWSKI: Well, what I said -- and I was responding to a question about that issue about impeachment.

And what I have said since then is that we're not there. There's no document right now that says the governor ordered the lane closure, that the governor knew about the lane closure. We have a lot of questions about his version of the story that says he only learned of this on January 8. We find it hard to believe. We have a lot more investigating to do. We have got 20 subpoenas that were issued and we're waiting to get those documents back.

And so I think it's really ahead of the investigation to start talking about what the ultimate conclusion will be. We will look at the facts as we get them. We're going to follow this one step at the same time, as we have so far. We started looking at a toll increase on the George Washington Bridge, and we found ourselves with evidence of somebody in the governor's office sending out an e-mail that was clearly not for an appropriate government purpose.

We need to find out why that e-mail was sent, who authorized the deputy chief of staff to send that e-mail, and follow those facts where they lead us.

BLITZER: I want to give you a chance to respond to the former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Both of you were on "Meet the Press" yesterday. And following your interview, he was on and he said this about you. Listen to this.

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RUDOLPH GIULIANI (R), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK: It would seem to me the assemblyman has an ethical obligation to step down, to recuse himself. He's no longer an impartial arbiter of the facts. He's announced he doesn't believe Governor Christie.

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BLITZER: He says this is all a partisan witch-hunt. He wants you to recuse yourself and step down. And you say?

WISNIEWSKI: I'm not stepping down and I'm not recusing myself.

It has been healthy skepticism throughout this process that has led to us where we're at. When we first started looking at this, we were told this was a traffic safety study, and then we were told it was about the lanes in Fort Lee and that we need not look any further, that this was really simple low a perfectly acceptable government operation.

But by asking questions and by doubting the stories we were told, we found e-mails, documentary proof that this came out of the governor's office. Now, as I said before, we don't have an e-mail that says the governor ordered it, but it's clearly disturbing that somebody in the governor's office thought it would be OK to close these lanes from Fort Lee and then essentially laughed about it as the entire town was shut down for a week.

BLITZER: The governor gave an interview to Yahoo.com on Friday, and among other things, Governor Christie said this.

"I don't know exactly what it is yet that I will learn from it, but when I get the whole story and really try to understand what's going on here, I know I'm going to learn things."

What's your reaction when you hear him talk like that?

WISNIEWSKI: Well, I think we all need to learn things. This can't happen again. And the laws and the situation we have right now in New Jersey and at the Port Authority allowed Bridget Kelly and others to plot to close these lanes and to shut down a town for an entire week.

And so what we need to learn as a legislature is, how do we stop this kind of abuse of power from happening again? I think the governor needs to understand, taking him at his word, how his administration and his inner staff, his high staff, could do something like this and, according to him, he would not know anything about it? It's just -- there's a lot of questions that are not answered and all of the things we're seeing just lead to more questions.

BLITZER: John Wisniewski is the deputy speaker of the New Jersey Assembly.

Thanks so much, Mr. Speaker, for joining us.

WISNIEWSKI: Thank you, Wolf.

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