Christie won't testify on Tuesday

United States Attorney Christopher Christie and former Attorney General John Ashcroft will not testify in front of the House Judiciary subcommittee next week.

The hearing, which was tentatively but not officially set for Tuesday, has been postponed until next month. 

The Judiciary Committee had asked Christie to testify about the lucrative federal monitoring contract he gave to John Ashcroft to oversee the medical implant company Zimmer Holdings, LLC. Christie had said he would testify if asked by the Justice Department.

Justice Department spokesman Paul Bresson did not say whether his department had asked Christie to testify, or whether they were refusing to do so.

“I don’t know that we’d want to really have a discussion about that,” he said. “As far as providing an appropriate department representative for the hearing, we’ll respond to that when the hearing is rescheduled.”

Michael Torra, chief-of-staff to California Rep. Linda Sanchez, who will chair the hearing, said that the committee had still not heard back from the Justice Department regarding its request for Christie to testify.  The request was made two weeks ago.

Torra said that the committee needed to work out exactly who the witnesses would be before going through with the hearing.  

"We haven’t really gotten word from the Justice Department either way," said Torra. "It's not that they’ve refused or said yes.  The conversations are still ongoing.”