To be honest, there’s something I’m even more interested about than the news that Chris Christie and Michele Brown were signing off on each other’s above-government rate travel.
Chris Christie occasionally billed taxpayers more than $400 a night for stays in luxury hotels and exceeded the government’s hotel allowance on 14 of 16 business trips he took in 2008.
[snip]
On trips in 2007 and 2008, his top deputy, Michele Brown, also exceeded the guidelines after Christie approved her requests for rooms in the same five-star hotels where he was booked.
The vouchers show Christie and Brown stayed at the NineZero Hotel in Boston on Oct. 16, 2007 and each billed taxpayers $449 plus taxes and fees for their rooms, more than double the government allowance for a Boston hotel room at the time, according to a General Services Administration travel reimbursement table.
[snip]
Records turned over so far show Christie exceeded the government lodging allowance on 23 of 30 business trips taken between 2004 and 2008. In some cases, his travel vouchers were approved first by Brown, then certified by a third person. Christie, who was Brown’s supervisor, signed off on her travel, either in advance or when she submitted vouchers, the records show. The vouchers were all certified by a third party.
It’s the timing of the long-awaited release of these records. As the AP reports, these documents came from Corzine’s campaign; they had asked for these records months and months ago. But Christie’s buddies, including Brown and acting USA Ralph Marra, were stalling on releasing the documents.
Well, surprise surprise, Christie’s replacement, Paul Fishman, finally got confirmed last week after some serious stalling in the Senate. And, voila! FOIA documents, suddenly released.
Sort of makes you wonder whether this is just the tip of the iceberg on embarrassing documents for Christie?