Committee examining traffic jams to get report

The committee of New Jersey lawmakers that has spent a year trying to get to the bottom of the politically motivated September 2013 traffic jams near the George Washington Bridge is slated to receive a summary of its investigation so far.

Committee Cochairman John S. Wisniewski, a Democratic assemblyman, said the committee would receive the report Thursday and plans to make it public Monday.

Wisniewski said the report by the committee's lawyer has more than 100 pages and summarizes the investigation - and the work done previously by the Assembly's transportation committee - but does not draw any conclusions about what happened or make any recommendations.

"It also points out the things that we don't know yet, because we have not been able to interview all the witnesses we'd like to interview," Wisniewski told the Associated Press.

For four mornings in September 2013, two of three access lanes from Fort Lee to the New York City-bound bridge were blocked, causing massive traffic delays.

Documents released this year showed that David Wildstein, then an official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Bridget Kelly, then an aide to Gov. Christie, orchestrated the shutdown, apparently as retribution toward Fort Lee's Democratic mayor. In one e-mail, Kelly told Wildstein, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Wildstein later contended that Christie knew about the lane closures as they happened. Christie denies that he had any role in or knowledge of a plot to shut down the lanes.

A report commissioned by Christie cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Christie has characterized the lawmakers' investigation, led by Democrats, as politically motivated. Still, questions about the issue have loomed over Christie's political future. As chairman of the Republican Governors Association, he spent the year raising money for his party's largely successful gubernatorial races in November. That job meant traveling the country, including repeated stops in the early caucus and primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. The governor has said that sometime after the elections he would decide whether he would run for president in 2016.

Christie is scheduled to travel to Canada on Thursday for his third international trip since becoming governor in 2010 and his second this year.

The U.S. Attorney's Office also is looking into what happened. Nearly 11 months after the office confirmed an investigation had begun, there have been no criminal indictments.

Lawmakers have not held hearings since July because they say federal officials have asked them not to question several potential witnesses who could be part of the criminal probe.