Assemblywoman Vicky Flynn (R-Holmdel) is calling on Gov. Mikie Sherrill to release the underlying records from the investigation that forced Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell from office, invoking the standard Democratic lawmakers set when they demanded similar materials from Gov. Chris Christie’s Bridgegate investigation more than a decade ago.
Flynn wants the Sherrill administration to make public interview memoranda, attorney notes and supporting documents from the investigation conducted by former Attorney General Christopher Porrino and the Lowenstein Sandler law firm.
If Sherrill does not release the records voluntarily, Flynn said the legislature should form a bipartisan investigative committee with subpoena power to obtain them.
“Now we have an investigative report saying one thing and the former lieutenant governor saying something very different,” Flynn said. “That’s exactly why the underlying record matters.”
The 61-page report released last Thursday substantiated allegations of sexual harassment and ethics violations against Caldwell, prompting Sherrill to demand his resignation by the following day. Caldwell resigned Friday.
Caldwell is now challenging the report’s findings and the process used to reach them, arguing that investigators discounted witnesses whose accounts conflicted with his accuser and did not give him a meaningful opportunity to respond before the report was released.
Flynn said that dispute makes disclosure of the material underlying the report particularly important.
“You don’t get to investigate your own administration, release a report and tell the public that’s the end of the story,” Flynn said. “They demanded the records behind the Christie report. We’re demanding the same thing now. If that standard applied to Chris Christie, it applies to Mikie Sherrill.”
The legislature has a precedent for demanding the underlying records of an investigation commissioned by a governor.
In 2014, Democratic legislative leaders investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closures demanded the documents and interview records Gibson Dunn attorneys hired by the Christie administration used to conduct its own inquiry.
Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg and Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville), the Democratic co-chairs of the legislative investigative committee, threatened to subpoena the material if it was not provided voluntarily.
Christie’s attorneys ultimately turned over 75 interview memoranda to the legislative committee and the U.S. Attorney’s Office and made them available publicly.
Gibson Dunn and the lead investigator, Randy Mastro, were skewered by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Wigenton for not keeping original notes of the report, which essentially cleared Christie, who hired them, of any wrongdoing.
Wigenton called the decision not to retain original notes a “calculated strategy” to hide the ball from a taxpayer-funded internal probe.
“What they got instead was opacity and gamesmanship,” Wigenton noted of the largely discredited report. “They deserve better.”
Porrino was Christie’s chief counsel at the time and was Mastro’s principal contact in the governor’s office.
Flynn said Democrats were right to demand that level of disclosure then and should accept the same standard now.
Her request also focuses on what the Caldwell report says — and does not say — about Sherrill’s own knowledge of the allegations.
The report details warnings, training, and counseling Caldwell received from senior administration officials beginning in March, but Flynn said it leaves unanswered whether investigators interviewed Sherrill and when the governor personally learned about concerns involving her lieutenant governor.
“The governor chose Dale Caldwell as her running mate. She put him in charge of her transition. She now says the findings against him were serious enough that he had to resign, and Caldwell says those findings are wrong,” Flynn said. “There’s a big hole in this report where the governor should be. Release the interview records and let the public see who said what, who knew what, and what the governor did about it.”
Sherrill said last week that the investigation found Caldwell engaged in “serious, repeated violations of state policy” and demonstrated a pattern of behavior that did not meet the standards of her administration.
The investigation substantiated allegations that Caldwell sexually harassed a female staffer, brought personal guests to ticketed events without paying or reimbursing their admission, and used his office to seek a promotion for a state employee with whom he had a romantic relationship without disclosing that relationship.
Investigators found the staffer who accused Caldwell credible and rejected Caldwell’s denials of key allegations. Caldwell has disputed those conclusions.
Flynn said the underlying records could also explain why Caldwell remained in office — including serving as acting governor when Sherrill was out of state — while the investigation was underway.
She said she wants to know when Sherrill first learned of concerns about Caldwell’s conduct, whether the governor confronted him directly and why he was permitted to continue serving as lieutenant governor and secretary of state during the investigation.
Flynn said records could be released without publicly identifying the staffer who reported harassment or others who came forward during the investigation.
“Protect the victims. Redact their names. But don’t use their privacy as a shield for the governor,” Flynn said. “Release the records voluntarily. If the governor won’t, the Assembly should do exactly what Democrats did during Bridgegate: convene a bipartisan investigative committee with subpoena power and get them.”
Note: The author, David Wildstein, was an architect of the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closures and was a subject of the Mastro Report, the Christie administration-commissioned investigation referenced in this story.