Chris Christie blocks release of his office’s emails with Jared Kushner’s company
www.fastcompany.com/40577859/chris-christie-blocks-release-of-his-offices-emails-with-jared-kushners-company
... Christie, whose eight-year administration spent almost $1 million battling to keep public records secret, issued a letter in his last week in Trenton that declared any requests involving his office’s electronic records would be handled by his private lawyer, rather than by state employees.
“The governor can’t just issue a letter and make everything nonpublic,” said Walter Luers, a Clinton, N.J., lawyer and expert in the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA).
But Jeff Chiesa, Christie’s attorney, used the letter as the basis for rejecting MapLight’s request for copies of emails between Christie’s office and the Kushner Companies–even though he said his law firm had “identified a limited number of responsive documents.” The New Jersey State Archives shared Chiesa’s letter in response to MapLight’s records request.
Flavio Komuves, a partner at the Zazzali Fagella law firm in New Jersey, said that OPRA requires government officials to review records requests and determine whether to release documents.
Under Christie’s letter, Komuves said, “that decision is being made by his personal lawyer who owes an obligation to him personally, and not by someone who has sworn an oath of office to look after the public interest. That is a very disturbing aspect of what’s happened here.”
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