Bill Stepien: How the 2013 Bridgegate scandal became a low point in Trump's new campaign manager's career
President Donald Trump on Wednesday, July 15, announced seasoned political campaign manager Bill Stepien as the new campaign chief of his 2020 re-election mission. The 42-year-old New Jersey man, who has quite a notable career in managing campaigns, replaced Brad Parscale who has now been demoted to the role of senior adviser. Stepien was with Trump during the 2016 election season as well and the president is now banking heavily on him to turn around the challenging conditions in his favor.
However, while Stepien has a number of high points in his career of political management, it also features a gray spot and that is the infamous Bridgegate of 2013. Bridgegate or Fort Lee lane-closure scandal is one in which the staff members and political aides to then New Jersey governor Chris Christie joined hands to create a massive traffic congestion in Fort Lee, NJ, by shutting down the lanes at the main toll plaza for the upper level of the George Washington Bridge connecting Fort Lee with Manhattan.
What is Bridgegate?
The problem started in September 9, 2013, when two of three toll lanes for a local street entrance were shut during the morning rush hour. Neither the public nor local officials and even emergency services were not notified of the closures and as a result it caused massive snarled-up traffic and gridlock. The two lanes were opened only on September 13 by an order from then Port Authority executive director Patrick Foye. He said the situation could have endangered lives and that it violated laws, both federal and state.
But why were the lanes shut by political players? It was later said that the shutdown was done intentionally as a political ploy. One allegation was that the closure was actually a countermeasure against Fort Lee’s Democratic Mayor Mark Sokolich for not supporting Republican Christie in the 2013 NJ governor’s election. The investigations that followed zeroed in on several of Christie’s appointees including David Wildstein, who asked the lanes to be closed, and Bill Baroni, who defended the act before the NJ Assembly Transportation Committee saying they were done for the purpose of a traffic study.
Stepien was also among the frontline aides to Christie at the time of the blockade and allegedly facilitated the controversial plan. According to a report in Politico, Wildstein said Stepien knew about the plan before its execution. "Mr Stepien asked about what story we were going to use, and I told Mr Stepien we were going to use the cover of a traffic study," he was quoted as saying.
Stepien later strongly denied his involvement and knowledge about the incident. In 2014, Christie snapped his ties with him saying he lost confidence in Stepien’s judgment and he temporarily faded from public memory before returning to join Trump’s 2016 campaign. Like Christie, Stepien was never indicted in the case but emails and text messages showed that he knew about the scandal and that Christie’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs showed a history under his leadership of taking punitive actions against mayors and other political officials.
Stepien’s name featured in the trial involving the 2013 closures 700 times, according to a review of transcripts, Politico reported. But the man’s accomplished career as a campaign manager saw him overcoming the setback. He was made the political director at Trump’s White House in January, soon after he helped the Republican win the election. At the same time, people like Christie saw their political fortunes plummeting.