http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/nyregion/bridgegate-trial-chris-christie.html 2016-09-27 19:03:57 Christie Was Told of Bridge Plot During 9/11 Ceremony, Witness Testifies David Wildstein, the mastermind behind the lane closings, said Gov. Chris Christie was informed of the lane closings at a memorial service the week they were happening. === NEWARK — Gov. The man, David Wildstein, recalled how Mr. Christie reacted with laughter, clearly appreciating the news. And upon learning that the mayor’s calls were being met with silence, Mr. Wildstein said, the governor said in a sarcastic tone, “I imagine he wouldn’t get his calls returned.” Mr. Wildstein, who has admitted being the culprit behind the lane closings in 2013, testified as prosecutors showed a series of photographs of him, Mr. Christie and Bill Baroni, then the governor’s top staff appointee at the The photos showed the three men in a loose huddle on a dirt pathway between the Sept. 11 memorial and the construction site for a tower rising at the World Trade Center site. Mr. Christie, who has previously said he did not recall the conversation, appears engaged and attentive, looking into Mr. Baroni’s eyes, raising his eyes and laughing in some frames, and reaching out his hands to the other two men. “We were all very relaxed,” Mr. Wildstein testified. “Were you and Mr. Baroni bragging?” Lee Cortes, an assistant United States attorney, asked. “Very much so,” Mr. Wildstein said. “This was our one constituent. I was pleasing my one constituent. I was rather happy that he was happy.” Mr. Christie joked about Mr. Wildstein’s role, he testified, using the name Mr. Wildstein had used in the past as an anonymous political blogger, Wally Edge. “Mr. Baroni said to Governor Christie that I was monitoring the traffic, I was watching over everything,” Mr. Wildstein, a former Port Authority official hired by Mr. Baroni, recalled on Tuesday. “Governor Christie said in the sarcastic tone of the conversation, he said, ‘Well, I’m sure Mr. Edge would not be involved in anything that’s political.’” Mr. Christie, a Republican, did not make any effort to intervene in the lane closings, which continued for two additional mornings and raised public safety concerns in Fort Lee, N.J., because of the catastrophic traffic jams caused by the shut down. “From this conversation, were you concerned about continuing the lane reduction?” Mr. Cortes asked. “No, not at all,” Mr. Wildstein said. David Samson, one of Mr. Christie’s closest advisers who at the time was the chairman of the Port Authority, came later to the conversation and talked about the mayor who had declined to endorse the governor, Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee, a Democrat, and how he was being ignored. Mr. Wildstein, shown photos of Mr. Samson’s joining the huddle, testified that Mr. Samson told Mr. Christie that another mayor, Steven M. Fulop of Jersey City, was pressuring him to meet to discuss Port Authority business. But the Christie administration was also mad at Mr. Fulop, a Democrat, for not endorsing the governor. “Governor Christie said no, no meetings with Mayor Fulop,” Mr. Wildstein testified. “He’s not getting any responses from the administration, just like Mayor Sokolich wasn’t.” Mr. Wildstein’s lawyer said shortly after the lane closings were exposed in 2014 — becoming a scandal that helped sink the presidential ambitions of Mr. Christie — that “evidence exists” that the governor knew about the lane closings while they were happening. But the testimony and the photographs on Tuesday were the first indication of what that evidence might be. Mr. Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, are on trial in federal court here on charges of conspiring to close the lanes to punish Mr. Sokolich and then covering up the scheme.