CAHOOTS

Cuomo ‘Involved’ in Bridgegate Cleanup

Phone, email records show.

Newly released documents indicate New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his staffers responded immediately to the September 2013 lane-closure fiasco on the George Washington Bridge, far earlier than was previously known. Three months after the scandal broke, Cuomo had said, “I don’t know anything more than basically what has been in the newspaper.” Email and phone records obtained by WNYC, however, reveal frequent close communication and consultation between top Albany and New York staffers at the time of the closure on how to handle the issue, in addition to Cuomo reportedly discussing the scandal with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at the time. “It was exactly what should be done,” a Cuomo spokesman said Monday about the records. The governor’s office “was asking the agency to brief them on the facts.” Christie had said early on in the scandal that “the governor of the state of New Jersey does not involve himself in traffic studies.” The records, though, paint a far different picture.