Michele Brown

CRYAN FILES ELEC COMPLAINT AGAINST CHRISTIE
FOR FAILURE TO DISCLOSE LOAN

(TRENTON) – Democratic State Committee Chair Joseph P. Cryan today filed a complaint against Conservative Right Wing Gubernatorial Candidate Chris Christie with the Election Law and Ethics Commission (ELEC)  for his failure to disclose a personal loan of $46,000 to Michele Brown, currently the first assistant to the United States Attorney, promoted since Christie’s resignation.  Cryan said that Christie is in clear violation of state law that promotes transparency, accountability and ethical behavior.

Chris Christie's unreported $46k person loan to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michele Brown has become an issue in the gubernatorial campaign

In a statement released by Gov. Jon Corzine's campaign today, strategist Tom Shea says that "serious questions remain about the loan Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie gave to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michele Brown, and pushed the U.S. Attorney's office to move quickly in the release of information the campaign requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

"Chris Christie had at least four opportunities to comply with the law and disclose this loan, yet he failed to do so each and every time. There seems to be no mystery that he was determined to keep it secret," said Shea.  The question is, why?"

"Christie and the U.S. Attorney's Office need to begin providing answers. They can start by immediately providing the specific dates of the promotions and salary increases Christie gave Michele Brown," Shea said.  "We have filed a Freedom of Information Act request requesting this information, but our previous requests for such basic public information have been bottled up by Christie's friends for more than five months. The public shouldn't have to wait a day longer."

Shea questioned how Brown, the second ranking official in the federal prosecutor's office, can treat public corruption investigations in a non-partisan fashion "when she remains indebted - literally - to the Republican candidate for governor?"

GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie in between state Sen. Kevin O'Toole (R-Cedar Grove), left, and state Sen. Brian P. Stack (D-Union City).

News about GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie's failure to disclose a loan to a former employee and report the income on his federal income tax and fallout from his pre-campaign discussions with Karl Rove have Democrats alert to shifting terrain in the gubernatorial election even if they remain guarded about the outcome.

Ahead by double digits through the bulk of the summer, Republicans say the headlines are inevitable campaign turbulence, and not even close to death spiral spasms.

"We'll continue to work contrasts between Jon Corzine and Chris Christie," said Democratic State Chairman Joseph Cryan, who wouldn't identify this week as the first time in the cycle that Gov. Jon Corzine has appeared to have climbed off the political cold slab, a condition some polls have shown the governor to be in since he and Christie officially started their head-to-head rivalry back in June.

State Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) today stepped up the optimism.

"At this point it's a horse race, but I'm feeling very confident the governor will be successful," said the chair of the Senate Budget Committee and a prospective candidate for lieutenant governor until Corzine picked her colleague, state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck).

Buono toured Indian-American businesses with Corzine today on Oak Tree Road in Edison in her first campaign appearance with the governor since failing to lock up the LG spot.

Responding to reports that he failed to disclose a $46,000 loan to high ranking U.S. Attorney staffer and personal friend Michele Brown on his taxes and other required financial disclosure forms, Republican gubernatorial nominee Christopher Christie this afternoon said that he did not include the loan because he did not think of it "as an asset that was giving me income."

Christie said he would amend his 2007 tax return to include the $420 in interest earned that year, and that he would estimate earning $2,400 in interest for 2008.  He also said he has been granted permission by the Justice Department to amend his 2007 and 2008 federal employment disclosure forms.

Below is a transcript of Christie's comments from his campaign appearance in Cherry Hill this afternoon, which was provided by the Christie campaign:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie says he will file an ammended federal income tax return that will show $420 in interest income he earned from a personal loan to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michele Brown.  Christie will also ammend financial disclosure statements filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice that left off the details of his $46,000 loan to Brown.

Gov. Jon Corzine today with Mayor James Kennedy in Rahway.

RAHWAY - Gov. Jon Corzine says that a personal loan given by GOP gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie to the second in command at the U.S. Attorney's office calls into question the politicization of the federal prosecutor's office.

"Just as did the conversations he had with Karl Rove," the governor added, referring to testimony by the former Deputy White House Chief of Staff, who said he talked to Christie about prospective political aspirations while Christie served as U.S. Attorney.

Corzine admitted he has loaned money to people who worked for him  -- "of course," he said -- but stressed that has nothing to do with his rival's $46,000 mortgage loan to Michele Brown, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney.

"My opponent has an ad, 'Watch what he does, not what he says,' critical of me, but by not reporting the income from this loan, my opponent is not doing what he says," Corzine said.

The New York Times is reporting that Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie "failed to report income from a loan he gave in 2007 to a top aide while he was New Jersey's ranking federal prosecutor on his tax returns."

While serving as U.S. Attorney, Christie loaned a top deputy, Michele Brown, $46,000 after the career federal prosecutor began experiencing some person financial problems.  Christie and his wife, and Brown and her husband are personal friends and neighbors.

Revelations yesterday that Christopher Christie did not report a personal loan he made to a former top deputy at the U.S. Attorney's office is the latest in a series of self-inflicted wounds that could cost him the race for governor.  Christie had solid lead over Gov. Jon Corzine in last week's Quinnipiac poll (51%), but his own mistakes are helping the Democrats regain some lost ground.  The conventional wisdom among many political insiders is that Corzine, enormously unpopular with voters, cannot win the election, but he can make Christie lose by spending enough to raise the negatives of his Republican rival.

Making a personal loan to a close family friend is not a political liability; indeed, Corzine has made plenty of financial gifts -- sometimes to people he doesn't even like.  Christie's problem here is that he did not report that loan on personal financial disclosure statements required by the Department of Justice.  News last week that Christie discussed his upcoming campaign for governor with former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove helps Corzine paint Christie as a conservative Republican close to an unpopular former president.  Christie's decisions - apparently legal - to award no-bid public monitor contracts to: former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft; David Kelley, who was the U.S. Attorney in New York who decided not to prosecute Christie's brother for illegal trading violations; and to close political allies Herbert Stern and John Inglesino, who later made major contributions to Christie's campaign, are all self-inflicted wounds.  Christie's greatest attribute is his record taking down corrupt politicians.  His greatest problem, at least right now, is that Corzine can afford to turn each of these issues into 30-second TV ads. 

Updated: Christie did not report income from the loan on his federal tax return, according to a New York Times story.

Corzine's chutzpah is clear, although in blue New Jersey that might not matter.  The governor has not exactly been the poster child for full transparency.  Starting back in 2000, he lost ground when he refused to release his income taxes (he hid behind a Goldman Sachs partnership agreement that was less important a few years later when his ex-partner, Henry Paulsen, became U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.  He has declined to release his personal e-mail correspondence with Carla Katz, who was both his girlfriend and the president of the state's largest public employee union.  He even posted bail for a lobbyist who was accused to stalking one of his closest political allies.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie, left, gave a personal loan to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michele Brown, left

As U.S. Attorney, Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie gave high ranking staffer Michele Brown a $46,000 mortgage loan that she continues to pay off, NJN reported in its news cast tonight.

The report by correspondent Zachary Fink said that Brown has been paying Christie and his wife, Mary Pat, back in monthly increments of $499.22 since taking the loan in October, 2007.  She is scheduled to finish payments in 2017.

Christie told NJN that Brown, who was the office’s fourth ranking staffer at the time of the loan and is now First Assistant U.S. Attorney – the number two spot under Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra – asked for financial help after her husband lost his job while facing credit card debt.  He said there was nothing improper aboutthe relationship.  Christie and his wife are close friends with Brown and her husband, who are their neighbors in Mendham. 

“I’ll tell you that I just believe if you have friends who are in need that you help them, whether they work with you or whether they’re friends of yours from outside the work realm,” Christie said.

The convention wisdom is that Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra, Jr. will end his longtime service with the Department of Justice when Paul Fishman takes over, rather than drop down to another post within the office of the federal prosecutor.  The 55-year-old Marra has spent 23 years on the government payroll as an Assistant U.S. Attorney; he won't be struggling to find law firms willing to offer him a partnership.

Look for First Assistant Michele Brown, who made some news earlier this month when she attended a politically-oriented social gathering at the home of her former boss, Christopher Christie, to end her seventeen-year affiliation with the U.S. Attorney's office.

Fishman has given no indication of his choices for some of the top positions in his office, including First Assistant, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney, Deputy U.S. Attorney, Counsel to the U.S. Attorney, Criminal Chief, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys in charge of the Trenton and Camden offices.  During his eleven years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Fishman headed the Criminal and Narcotics divisions, and was First Assistant for four years.

It is realistic to think that Fishman will move career prosecutors up the ladder. Deputy U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick; Marc Larkins, the counsel to the U.S. Attorney; Charles McKenna, the Chief of the Criminal Division; and James Lynch, a former Acting Camden County Prosecutor who now heads the U.S. Attorney's Camden office.