There is no active investigation into Gary Taffet, the New Jersey Globe has learned, leaving the former chief of staff to Gov. James E. McGreevey looking for answers on how the New Jersey attorney general might restore reputational harm following leaks to the media last year.
Three sources with direct knowledge of the attorney general’s office probe have confirmed that Taffet and the brokerage firm he works for, Acrisure, are not the subject of any inquiry.
“Our policy is that we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation,” said Steve Barnes, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
With rumors now behind him, Taffet may now move on to his next assignment as one of five Democrats on the Legislative Apportionment Commission to redraw districts for the 2023 elections. He’s a close ally of Gov. Phil Murphy, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and Middlesex County Democratic Chairman Kevin McCabe.
This is a blemish on the record of reporter Nancy Solomon, writing for WYNC and the Gothamist, which sought to dismantle Taffet by suggesting that he traded campaign contributions for insurance contracts – an assertion that the attorney general appears to have dismissed.
Some insiders, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, suggested that some media outlets improperly accepted the narrative of one of Taffet’s business competitors. That left him with what one said was an “unfair digital footprint” that was riddled with assumptions and included some inaccuracies that required corrections.
Acrisure is a $2.1 billion company with more than 600 worldwide offices after making over 100 acquisitions last year.
Correction: an earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Solomon as writing for ProPublica. Her story was written for WNYC and Gothamist.
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June 3, 2019 -
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