The Fort Lee mayor that Gov. Chris Christie said he wouldn’t be able to pick “out of a lineup” shared a steak lunch with the governor three years before the George Washington Bridge scandal, it was reported Friday.
Mayor Mark Sokolich and Christie began a relationship after the meal that included two Sokolich visits to holiday parties at the mansion and other brief but public encounters, Sokolich told Bloomberg News.
The ties between Sokolich, a Democrat, and Republican Christie are a key to the scandal because of allegations that Christie aides ordered bridge lane closings — which caused traffic chaos in Fort Lee — to punish Sokolich for refusing to endorse the governor’s re-election.
At his Jan. 9 press conference Christie ridiculed the idea.
“Until I saw his picture last night on television, I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a lineup,” Christie said of Sokolich. “The reason that the retribution idea never came into my head is because I never even knew that we were pursuing his endorsement.”
Sokolich said he had a clear memory of how his relationship with Christie began. The governor invited him for a lunch of beef tenderloin in a cream sauce with a salad at Drumthwacket, the governor’s mansion in Princeton, three years before, he said.
He said the meal was “very meaningful.”
“it’s not often you have a captive audience with the governor,” Sokolich said.
He said Christie wanted to talk about his plans to cap property taxes and control municipal costs.
“I was impressed. He was very focused,” Sokolich said. “We shared in common what we thought to be the biggest problems confronting New Jersey.”
He said Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, a fellow Democrat, also attended the lunch.
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