If you believe the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., then members of New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie's administration threatened to withhold Hurricane Sandy relief money unless she approved a redevelopment plan favored by the governor. If you believe Christie's aides, then those accusations are not only categorically false, but baffling, ridiculous and offensive.
Who's telling the truth is anyone's guess, but it looks like one side is destined for an ugly flameout that will play out in public.
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The latest scandal to befall Christie's team surfaced Saturday, when Hoboken's Democratic Mayor Dawn Zimmer went on MSNBC to say that Richard Constable, the governor's community affairs manager, and New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno had told her she needed to approve a redevelopment plan that the Garden State governor wanted and, if she didn't, her city wouldn't get the Hurricane Sandy aid Zimmer had requested.
To date, the mayor has not allowed the plan to go forward, and she says Hoboken has received only $342,000 of the $127 million for which Zimmer asked.
The mayor also said she was willing to back up her allegations by testifying under oath. The next day, she upped the stakes when she went on CNN to say that Guadagno told her the message about Sandy aid came from Christie himself. She has now gone to federal prosecutors with documents, emails and her own diary notes that she believes validate her position.

New Jersey Lieutenant Gov. Kim Guadagno greets Gov. Chris Christie as he arrives to deliver the State of the State Address in the Assembly Chambers at the Statehouse on Jan. 14 in Trenton, N.J.
Image: Jeff Zelevansky/Stringer/Getty Images
This news has elicited passionate denials from several Christie aides. The first statement came from governor spokesperson Colin Reed, who in a statement to Mashable on Saturday denounced MSNBC as a "partisan" network that has been "openly hostile to Governor Christie and almost gleeful in their efforts attacking him."
Reed also expressed some confusion as to where Zimmer's claims were coming from.
"The Governor and Mayor Zimmer have had a productive relationship, with Mayor Zimmer even recently saying she’s ‘very glad’ he’s been our Governor," Reed said. "It’s very clear partisan politics are at play here as Democratic mayors with a political axe to grind come out of the woodwork and try to get their faces on television.”
The next to make a statement was Guadagno, who addressed Zimmer's comments Monday at an event in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. She called the mayor's version of events "false" and "illogical" and  said they would not stand up to scrutiny when all the facts came out. Guadagno also said the accusation was "offensive" given that she, too, was a victim of Hurricane Sandy.
These accusations against Christie aides are just the latest in a string of incidents that have rocked the administration, the most notable being the revelation that some of the governor's staff members and appointees created a massive four-day traffic jam around the George Washington Bridge in an alleged act of political revenge against a nearby borough's mayor.
The Christie administration has since been caught up in smaller claims of political retribution made by other city mayors, and federal auditors are looking into whether Christie's team misused funds meant for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
See also: Hoboken Mayor Says Christie Aides Withheld Sandy Relief Funds
This latest scandal, however, has come to dominate headlines over the past few days in large part because of the passion displayed by both parties in opposing narratives. One side is likely playing fast and loose with the facts, making it all the more important to detail what we know.
Constable, the Christie aid who Zimmer says also told her she needed to fund the development plan if she wanted relief funds, has said he welcomes an investigation.
Part of Zimmer's claim centers around a message he supposedly delivered to her while they sat on the same public television panel to discuss Sandy recovery. There, Zimmer said Constable told her money would "flow" to Hoboken if only she would agree to what the governor wanted.
Christie's camp tried to discredit that claim by circulating an Asbury Park Press story that quoted another panelist as saying he sat between Constable and Zimmer and did not recall them speaking to one another.
That panelist's memory, though, turned out to be incorrect. MSNBC later revealed a photo of the panel that shows Constable and the mayor sitting side by side. That doesn't mean the two had a conversation about the supposedly withheld Sandy aid, but it makes such a conversation at least possible, contrary to the Christie camp's claims.
The governor's administration has also looked to paint Zimmer as someone who has supported Christie up until a few days ago. And, by all accounts, she has. Though she didn't officially endorse his reelection campaign, she publicly supported him on Twitter.
To be clear I am very glad Governor Christie has been our Gov. I am not endorsing bc of Hob's non-partisan mayoral race.
— Dawn Zimmer (@dawnzimmernj) August 20, 2013
She was also almost effusive on Twitter in her praise of the governor in the days after Hurricane Sandy rocked New Jersey.
There are 130 premises still without heat in Hob. We r working as hard as possible to get it restored. Thank u to Gov Christie for helping.
— Dawn Zimmer (@dawnzimmernj) November 20, 2012
 
Housing Authority has power! Thank u President Obama and Gov Christie for the teamwork that brought us this result.
— Dawn Zimmer (@dawnzimmernj) November 6, 2012
 
Thank u President Obama and Gov Christie- just secured 10 battery trailers needed to work through the night—direct result of your teamwork.
— Dawn Zimmer (@dawnzimmernj) November 2, 2012
 
Thank you to President Obama, Gov Christie, FEMA, & OEM for the diesel fuel we just received to ensure our emergency vehicles can protect us
— Dawn Zimmer (@dawnzimmernj) November 2, 2012
Plenty of people, including Joe Scarborough, prominent host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, have questioned why someone who has seemingly been a Christie supporter has come out with such explosive claims at a moment when he is pinned down by a stream of other scandals.
The mayor has responded by saying she probably should have come out sooner, but she was afraid no one would believe her until now and that Hoboken would also be cut out from the next round of Sandy relief, $1.4 billion, set to be dispersed soon.
Both Zimmer and Guadagno are no stranger to political scandal. The Hoboken mayor was swept into the city's top office five years ago, winning 43% of the votes in a special election. This occurred after the state's U.S. Attorney's office, led by none other than Christie, caught the previous mayor and several other state officials in a corruption scandal.
Guadagno's situation was a little different. She was the sheriff of Monmouth County, N.J., in 2008 when she was accused of fudging the title of her chief of law enforcement so that he could receive both his salary and a pension that essentially doubled his yearly pay.
Guadagno was Christie's running mate at the time, and despite the conflict of interest, Christie did not appoint a special investigator to look into the matter. The incident was never thoroughly investigated and, six years later, the trail has gone stale.
For now, those are the facts the public knows about the people involved in the latest scandal to befall members of the Christie administration.
Though currently a game of he-said, she-said, with national attention now focused on the New Jersey governor and the investigations into multiple scandals within his team, it is almost a sure bet that new details are soon to follow.
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