A Political Earthquake in South Jersey

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Today on the show, for Juneteenth, we are honored to have the great Harvard historian Tiya Miles. Maybe you read her National Book, Award-winning bestseller, All That She Carried, which came out in 2021. She's got a new book called Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People, which is a biography, but also more than a biography of Tubman as an individual. Looking forward to Tiya Miles coming up today.

We'll take your Juneteenth calls later, for descendants of enslaved African Americans, on what you've learned about your family history from the modern genealogy tools like DNA tests that are available today, and how what you've learned has affected you as you live your life today. We'll have our lead Eric Adams reporter Elizabeth Kim, as usual on Wednesdays, after the mayor's weekly news conference.

Topics today will include compensating for the closing of libraries on Sundays in the heat waves of summer, with libraries often used by people without AC as cooling centers, and Mayor Adams on the idea Governor Hochul floated, of banning masks on the subways. Is it increasing COVID risk to decrease hate crimes risk? Would you make that trade? That's all coming up. We start with the political earthquake rocking New Jersey, the indictment of Democratic Party power broker George Norcross on racketeering charges.

Who better to explain this Garden State intrigue than our own Nancy Solomon, who hosts the monthly Ask Governor Murphy call-in show, here on WNYC. The Murphy-Norcross relationship has been notoriously complicated. Nancy is host of the acclaimed WNYC podcast series Dead End, a New Jersey political murder mystery, which is very much about George Norcross, though, for the record, no, Nancy does not accuse him of murder, but she has just released a new edition of Dead End about the Norcross indictment.

Hey, Nancy. Never a dull moment. Welcome back to the show.

Nancy Solomon: Good morning. Yes, it is never a dull moment. I often say to people, "It's the gift that keeps giving to cover New Jersey politics."

Brian Lehrer: Oh, boy. Indeed. Before we get into the indictment, since George Norcross is mostly a South Jersey power broker, many of our North Jersey listeners, as well as those in New York and elsewhere, might need a little George Norcross 101. Who is he, and where would you start to explain what his role has been in New Jersey's political life?

Nancy Solomon: He's 67. Maybe he's had a birthday and is 68, but he's about that. He was born in Camden. His father was a very prominent Democratic labour leader in Camden County. Blue collar family, moved to the suburbs of Camden when George was very young. He got his start in politics. He went to college as a freshman at Rutgers Camden and decided-- basically, grew up at his father's knee, learning politics, and then, when he arrived at Rutgers Camden, decided that the professors didn't know as much as he did, so he set out on his own.

He set himself up in a little basement office, with a card table, and started raising money for local candidates, and also started a insurance business. For more than 30 years, he has run, what I think is fair to say, the most effective political machine in New Jersey. We'll get into the criminal charges, but you also got to recognize that this was just an extremely well-run political operation.

Basically, he raised money, got candidates elected, held those elected officials, once they were elected, feet to the fire, built coalitions and amassed power, and then could go back to those politicians year in and year out, and get political favors. Not just to help himself make money, and he made tons of money, but to help those who contributed to his campaign funds. That's machines 101.

You have this cycle that replenishes itself, of getting people elected and then raising the money because you're helping people, and they kick back to you. What finally got him tripped up really starts with his brother rewriting the tax break law in New Jersey in-- I think, probably, they were rewriting it in 2012. It got passed in 2013, and this is when Chris Christie, a Republican, mind you, is governor.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe worth saying that Norcross, officially, is known as a Democratic Party power broker, but he's had close relations with powerful people on both sides of the aisle, including Governor Christie, very much, when Christie was governor, right?

Nancy Solomon: Yes. I think the two men, their alliance, which was much more transactional than it was ideological, really boosted the power of each of them. I don't think Chris Christie gets done anywhere near what he got done without the Democrats in the legislature, who are ultimately really controlled by George Norcross. He would take issue with that, but I think I can provide facts to show that he really was controlling the biggest voting block of Democrats in the state legislature. He's a member of Mar-a-Lago, friend of Donald Trump.

Brian Lehrer: Really?

Nancy Solomon: He has alliances on both sides of the aisle. I think some Democrats, over the years, have started to feel that his politics had moved much, much more to the center-right, and was becoming a problem for Democrats in the state, but that's a more political thing than a criminal enterprise thing.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Let's get to this criminal indictment by the New Jersey Attorney General's Office. Here is 11 seconds of Attorney General Matt Platkin, on Monday.

Attorney General Matt Platkin: This indictment alleges that a group of unelected private businessmen used their power and influence to get government at the state and local levels to aid their criminal enterprise and further its interests.

Brian Lehrer: How did they do that, Mr. Attorney General?

Nancy Solomon: You're asking me that?

Brian Lehrer: No, I was queuing up the next clip.

Nancy Solomon: Okay. Sorry.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hear that.

Attorney General Matt Platkin: They co-opted the Camden city government to aid the Norcross Enterprise in obtaining property and property rights along the Camden waterfront, through coercion, extortion, and other criminal acts.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Nancy, begin to flush that out for us.

Nancy Solomon: One of the things that's interesting in the indictment is that, over and over again, the Attorney General refers to the Norcross Enterprise, capital N, capital E. Basically, this is a RICO case. This is the racketeering statutes on the books that started as a federal matter when Bobby Kennedy tried to take down the mob and the involvement of the mob in the American Union movement in the 1960s.

This is a tool that prosecutors can use to really put together charges that explain the interconnectedness of the enterprise and help them to make a criminal case. That's precisely what Matt Platkin is doing. He's basically alleging that this criminal enterprise used the apparatus of the state through political manipulation, coercion, and retaliation, to hold political elected officials loyal to them, to keep them loyal, and to keep them doing what they wanted to do.

They rewrote the tax laws I mentioned, and they started to apply for those tax breaks. George Norcross's brother, Phil, who's also indicted, actually helped write that bill. They rewrote the tax break law to give businesses that moved to Camden extra breaks, less accountability, and less requirements for those tax breaks. Then, they proceeded to apply for those tax breaks.

Just a huge group of businesses that are all connected in some way, not everyone, every business that got a tax break, but in Camden, there are, I think, 13 businesses that got tax breaks that are connected to Norcross in varying degrees, whether it's his exact business, whether it's his business partners, who he built the 15-story Camden Tower, a free building, paid for by the state, with those tax breaks, whether it's the 76ers or Subaru, legit companies that were-- they were clients of Phil Norcross.

George Norcross was on the board of directors of a business called Holtec International, which got the second-largest tax break in New Jersey history. They get the tax breaks and it's alleged that they got them fraudulently, because you're supposed to be moving from somewhere, or not moving out of state, and say that the [unintelligible 00:10:18] certified, that you wouldn't come if it were not for the tax breaks.

Then, at the same time that they're putting through this tax break plan, they're also basically gathering and taking land that is vacant, or some of it's not vacant, some of the buildings on the Camden Waterfront, and you got to imagine this. This is a spectacular piece of land, quite large, on the Delaware River, in downtown Camden, that has just a spectacular view of Philadelphia and the skyline, just like if you're in Jersey City, looking at New York, except the Delaware River is not quite as wide.

It really is like you're right there, looking at the skyline. The indictment alleges, and we detailed a lot of this in the podcast and in the reporting that I did in 2019, between us and a collaboration with ProPublica. They basically muscled people who had the rights to develop that land out. There's the extortion of business people and a nonprofit organization to get the land. There's the fraud to get the tax breaks, which is essentially a new building program.

You get a one-for-one match for your capital investment in Camden from the state. They built a bunch of buildings. That's the three elements. It's the political control and retaliation, it's the tax breaks, it's the extortion and the taking of that land, and you get some real thuggery in there, where one person is told if he doesn't give over the deal that his organization has to buy this office complex, that's on that piece of land, that he'll be persona non grata. It's stuff like that.

Brian Lehrer: I read there's a recording that the prosecutors have of Norcross in which a developer asks, "Are you threatening me," and Norcross replies, "Absolutely." I guess there are legal threats and illegal threats in this world, that people can make. Obviously, he's being charged with, I guess, making some illegal ones in the context of this web of crimes that you were just explaining that he's accused of.

It sounds like fraudulently obtaining Camden Waterfront property rights, which sounds like a private sector crime, fraudulently obtaining tax breaks, which is more of a public sector crime, also illegally influencing government officials, which sounds like bribery. I don't know if that exact word is used, but it's really a web of public and private sector crimes allegedly innocent until proven guilty. That's really quite far-reaching.

Nancy Solomon: If anything, to me, the key thing is that this is an indictment of New Jersey's political system and the lack of checks, balances, and control, and/or lack of accountability and monitoring. Also, it's an indictment of previous attorneys general. Matt Platkin is bringing this case that has been sitting in public view for several years. Governor Murphy came into office and committed himself to cleaning up the tax break program, and the backroom deals.

He set up a task force. It was run by this really spectacular lawyer in New York, because they had to go out of New Jersey to get a lawyer who could take on this stuff. This guy's name is Jim Walden and he's got a storied history of taking down the mob when he was at the Southern District of New York, a federal prosecutor, and now he's in private practice. He led up this investigation.

Meanwhile, WNYC, ProPublica, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, I would say we were the main reporters who were reporting on and breaking stories about the tax breaks and how corrupt this was. The previous attorney general was handed this case, as one person said to me, on a silver platter. When you read the indictment, I don't want to brag, but I got to say, it's episode five and episode six of the Dead End podcast that we made.

This stuff is out there. I think Matt Platkin should be complimented for putting this case together. It takes a lot of courage to do this. Governor Murphy has patched up his differences with George Norcross and has been working with him, going to fundraisers. In the meantime, people like me and others are like, "What's going on here? Why are you forming this alliance when you know you are the one who had the task force that dug up all this stuff?" All of this stuff has been able to exist in plain view.

Matt Platkin, this is the second incredibly brave thing. If I can just express an opinion for a moment, the second incredibly brave thing he's done this year, because he also took on the crazy ballot design that is all part of this too. Party bosses are able to control politics so much by having control over the county ballots that everybody uses to elect their public officials. The whole system is just crying out for reform. These are two really big takedowns that hopefully are going to move the state in the right direction.

Brian Lehrer: Would it be fair, or would it be an overreach to say Governor Murphy was trying to woo Norcross politically this year, despite knowing of all these-- what now turned out to be actually charged criminal indictments allegations? Governor Murphy was wooing a closer relationship with him despite all of this, so that his wife, Tammy Murphy, could get better ballot placement in her campaign for the US Senate nomination, which, of course, she ultimately dropped?

Nancy Solomon: I think some people could make that argument. I think it predates the Menendez indictment, when Murphy starts to mend the fence with George Norcross. I wouldn't go that far. I wouldn't place all of it on that. I think Governor Murphy has an agenda. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean that he has a political agenda that he is trying to accomplish, as he should.

He has come to the decision that the way to do that is to engage the party bosses, which then gives you more and better access to getting help from the state legislature, to get that agenda done. Along the way, of course, Tammy Murphy was expected to glide to primary victory for the US Senate seat, now held by Bob Menendez, because she had the support of all those party bosses, including George Norcross, who controls not just Camden County, but all of the southern third of the state.

Brian Lehrer: I want to acknowledge that you're getting a lot of love on our text message feed here. I'm just going to read some of these before I give out the phone number and invite other people to call in. "Nancy Solomon is singing my favorite song with Brian on backup. What a banger to kick off the summer." Another one, from another phone number-- Oh, now that I said that, they're suddenly coming in fast. I'm going to have to keep up with them.

"Nancy Solomon's work is amazing. Norcross indictment, ending the county line, all Nancy's work." These are all coming from different phone numbers. This is not the same person writing over and over again. "Jersey native. This dynamically wild Norcross story is why people are checking out of voting. The system is broken." We'll come back to that. Another one, "I was saying to myself, didn't we already know this? Then I realized I knew it because you all reported it." [chuckles]

Then, somebody else-- this person's going to need a little bit of a correction, but this one says, "Bridget Bergin should be bursting with pride. Her work on Dead End was brilliant, and at times, we were worried about her safety." No, it's not Bridget, who does other brilliant work, it's Nancy Solomon, but just saying.

Nancy Solomon: I don't mind being confused with Bridget.

Brian Lehrer: Yet another one now, "Nancy, you are a gem. That podcast was incredible and the Camden situation is just so, so sad. That beautiful waterfront." Listeners, who else has a question or a comment about the indictment of George Norcross, or who can help us report this story? Hello, Camden, or anyone else with a story to tell about George Norcross's political or economic influence? Obviously, any criminal accusation is subject to a defense and trial in court.

We don't take anything in the indictment itself, or from any of your calls, as truths per se, if they're accusations, but we invite your stories as well as questions. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. I want to make sure we don't lose sight of the larger public interest here, which is the economy, the people of the city of Camden, and the redevelopment of the Camden Waterfront in that context. What conditions in Camden was this supposed to improve? What might be some of the big picture of what has actually happened outside the Waterfront District?

Another New Jersey journalist was telling me off the air, this week, after the indictment was announced, that if you're right on the waterfront, it looks pretty good, but if you walk just six blocks away, nothing has really changed, meaning private rather than public interests were mostly served by the development that has taken place, and there are still so many poor people in Camden, without the jobs or the allegedly trickle-down economic development that was supposed to take place. I wonder if your own reporting indicates anything like that?

Nancy Solomon: Absolutely. That's absolutely true, that you walk six blocks off the waterfront-- The waterfront, for folks who are North Jersey and New York folks, who haven't been down there, we're not talking about exchange place and the-- what do they call the Jersey Riviera, or whatever, that stretch in Jersey City that has been built up over the last 20, 30 years, with spectacular views of New York.

That was, I think, the vision, but really, the businesses that got the tax breaks built a few buildings on the waterfront, but it's still just windswept and mostly vacant. It has a little bit of development there, but it's not like it was such a success that the tax breaks then created all this growth and jobs. That's one thing. To talk about jobs, the progressive activists in Camden were able to get a local ordinance passed that requires companies that moved to Camden with the tax break to, every six months, provide the number of jobs that they have given to Camden residents.

Not jobs, but jobs to Camden residents. That has shown that there are very few jobs going to Camden residents. What you have is a city that is majority Black and Brown, still continues to be very low income, and just does not have even public service and public amenities for its residents. We're talking about-- Matt Katz, our WNYC colleague, this is reporting that he did when he was at The Philadelphia Inquirer, 15 years ago, about how the sewer system is completely screwed up, the water.

The non-profit developer and community development group that had a purchase agreement to buy an office complex on the waterfront, that is key to this whole indictment and criminal case, they were forced out, and their vision was to use the tax breaks, not just for businesses to come and build buildings, but to keep it open to the residents, to create parks, walkways, and nice amenities for residents of Camden. What you see when you go there now is-- it's just completely closed off to residents.

There is no longer access to the walkway along the river, like there once was. They took up all the parking that leads to the waterfront. It's hard for people to actually use that neighborhood in the same way that it used to get used. There's lots to complain about, but I think, overall, it's quite definitive that despite what George Norcross says, that everything he has done has been to uplift his hometown, that he loves-- that part of the sentence, I think is true, that he loves Camden, and wanted to uplift it, but it has not done that.

Brian Lehrer: One of the things you were just saying, backed up by one of the text messages that I excerpted from, that goes on to say, "That beautiful waterfront, completely inaccessible to the residents of the city. I hope Norcross finally gets what he deserves." We're going to continue in a minute, with our Nancy Solomon, who hosts the Ask Governor Murphy call-in show every month, on the station, and produced the amazing podcast series Dead End: A New Jersey Political Murder Mystery, which is very much about George Norcross.

Though, as I said in the intro, for the record, she does not accuse him of the murder described in the podcast. Nancy has just released a new edition of Dead End about the Norcross indictment. Nancy, when we come back, we'll take some phone calls for you, and more texts, but also, I will ask you if you saw what Star-Ledger columnist Tom Moran wrote this week, which is that the Norcross indictment revives questions on the Sheridan killings that your podcast is about.

Maybe there is some kind of connection. We'll continue with all those things, with Nancy Solomon, in just a minute. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue with our Nancy Solomon on the indictments this week, of South Jersey power broker, George Norcross, and Nancy's podcast series, Dead End: A New Jersey Political Murder Mystery. I'm sure you've seen it by now, Nancy, this reference to the killings that your podcast is about, in The Star-Ledger or nj.com online, their columnist, Tom Moran writes the Norcross indictment revives questions on the Sheridan killings. What kind of questions is Moran talking about there?

Nancy Solomon: Okay. Let me back up and explain what the connections are. This is why I wanted to do the podcast Dead End. John and Joyce Sheridan were a prominent Republican couple. They lived in the suburbs outside of Princeton, New Jersey. They were killed in their bedroom in September of 2014, and the investigators for the Somerset County Prosecutor's office quickly decided that it was a murder-suicide, that John Sheridan had killed his wife and then himself.

Yet, every story that came out about what the conditions of that bedroom and how the bodies were found, everything about it was beyond suspicious, more like crazy. Like, "What? This does not make sense, that somebody could have killed themselves, if these are the conditions that they found in the bedroom." In my mind, I had already done a bunch of reporting on the Camden Waterfront corruption, that now is in the indictment.

What I discovered, this is in 2019, while I was doing that reporting, I paid attention to the John Sheridan murder, and I thought it was quite curious but I didn't realize that he was engaged in a fight with his boss, because he was the CEO of Cooper Hospital. This is a guy who had worked for a couple of governors. He'd been the transportation commissioner. He was a very well-regarded man, and he took a job as CEO of Cooper University Hospital. George Norcross is the chairman of the hospital, and it's the jewel of his empire.

He was in a fight in 2014, months before the murders, that was about the land grab going on the Camden Waterfront. He was as a volunteer, the chairman of the board of the nonprofit developer that I talked about. He was trying to help them get this deal done, George and Phil Norcross were trying to take it away from them, and did take it away, and threatened, "If you don't give us the rights to that building, you will be persona non grata in this town."

The non-profit developers in Camden would not be able to be involved in any real estate in Camden ever again. That was like the backdrop. Then, what I found out was that Mark Sheridan, the son of John Sheridan, had asked for the documents. He was looking for his parents' tax documents after their deaths because he needed to file their tax returns. Even after you die, that has to happen.

Brian Lehrer: Nothing is certain in this world except death and taxes, and they're not mutually exclusive.

Nancy Solomon: Exactly. Anyway, Mark Sheridan asked the prosecutor's office, "Can you give me copies of the documents that you took from the dining room table? I need them." He gets a banker's box of documents, much more than he expected. He starts going through it, and it is a complete documentation of this fight that was going on on the Camden Waterfront, for the land and the properties that already existed there, that his father was engaged in with George and Phil Norcross.

That is the Sheridan case connection to this new indictment. It's why it raises serious questions; What I tried to show in the podcast, and I think we have quite a bit of evidence to show that it was not a murder-suicide. The couple was murdered in their home, and at the time that they were murdered, John Sheridan was involved in this very nasty fight. Ultimately, something that Tom Moran mentions in his column this week--

We have a current day, new beat forward about all of this because Governor Murphy has nominated this man named John Hoffman to be on the state Supreme Court. John Hoffman was the Attorney General, at the time, who refused to step in, when Chris Christie was governor, step in and take over this case despite the fact that 200 of the most prominent people in New Jersey politics wrote a letter saying, "This case needs to be investigated. You cannot call this a murder-suicide."

There are just so many red flags in this story. I think it remains to be seen whether the Sheridan murders will ever be solved, but it's certainly one of the big, huge questions that's still on the table.

Brian Lehrer: Joel, in Newark, you're on WNYC, with Nancy Solomon. Hello, Joel.

Joel: Thank you for taking my call. I am a person that grew up in Jersey City in the '50s and '60s. Thereafter, I lived in South Jersey in the '70s. I just want people to understand the emotional tenor of the populations in North Jersey and South Jersey. South Jersey has always felt that they get the short end of the stick out of Trenton. I do realize that there are significant reasons for that. Philadelphia is not New York.

New York is the greatest city in the world, and obviously, that part of New Jersey, which is under the New York sphere, is going to do better, generally, than South Jersey, under the Philadelphia sphere. I don't understand the precise nature of the charges that are being brought. When I grew up in Jersey City, the corruption was clear and blatant. It was about cash that was being transferred, something along the lines of the type of thing that Senator Menendez is charged with.

I don't see that here. My understanding is that the indictment is based on something like a misrepresentation to the state legislature, or misrepresentation to the regulatory agencies, in terms of who would be staying in New Jersey or moving out of New Jersey at the development not taking place. I don't know. If people are going to be indicted, tried, and convicted for misrepresentation to state legislatures, we're not going to have anybody left in politics to run things.

Brian Lehrer: Joel, thank you for your historical perspective. It's a great question, really, and it implies, I think, at least two questions that I'm going to follow up on your call with Nancy. The heart of it there is, does this really count as corruption? You know that the United States Supreme Court has thrown out some prominent corruption cases in recent years and held that the corruption, the quid pro quo, has to be really explicit.

A lot of what we might want to think of as corruption is really business as usual. It might be legal corruption, but legal corruption is legal. First on that, and then I'm going to ask you another question about some of the history that he references, and how it applies to today.

Nancy Solomon: Yes. Thanks, Joel. It's a great question. There is no corruption charge or bribery charge in the indictment. It's a RICO case, which involves the concept of racketeering. I think your question is central to what Attorney General Matt Platkin has done with this indictment. He is charging all of the people charged, Norcross' brother and the others, the former mayor of Camden included, with running a criminal enterprise.

I agree with you. I think it's a really interesting comparison to say, you've got Bob Menendez where, if the allegations are true and he's convicted, he took a bribe, a lot of cash, and a lot of gold bars to do things in his job as senator for the people who bribed him, that's much simpler than a racketeering case, in which, basically, what's being alleged is that you have the manipulation, control, and retaliation over politicians who then are able to award favors.

The favor, of course, is the tax breaks. You have the fraudulent getting of the tax breaks, and then you have the extortion of the business people and nonprofit organization who had the rights to develop the land on the Camden Waterfront, that was taken by force. Extortion is theft by force, it's theft by harassment and verbal threat. They were extorted, if the charges hold up, for things that were of value. This is a very classic racketeering case, they don't have to prove political corruption per se.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Last question, and this also flows from Joel's call. Now, we have arguably the most powerful South Jersey political figure, George Norcross, and the most powerful North Jersey one, Senator Menendez, both facing criminal charges for corruption or racketeering. This is like the old image of New Jersey. He talked about growing up in the '60s and '70s in corrupt Jersey City.

This is like the old image of New Jersey as a cesspool of corruption, racketeering, or call it what you will, extortion, that I thought it had gotten past in recent decades. I wonder how you see these two indictments together in the large sweep of history, and then we're out of time.

Nancy Solomon: Yes. I see it as a lack of sleep for me and the meager number of journalists who are left in New Jersey. This really comes at such a remarkable time in our history, because of the loss of local journalism. I went to the press conference that Matt Platkin gave on Monday, and there were like five, six, seven of us there. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, there would've been 30 reporters there. That in itself says something about just how difficult it has been to keep up with all the corruption. I think I'd go back to what I said earlier.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to excerpt that last line and play it in every pledge dive. I'm just saying.

Nancy Solomon: Going back to what I said earlier, this stuff has been there-- Look, Bob Menendez was already tried for a very similar case. When was that? 6/17. All of this stuff has been out there, it's been reported on, and there hasn't been the government accountability, there hasn't been the independence. The last independent attorney general, I'm probably going to get in trouble for saying this, but I think it's fair to say the last good independent attorney general we had was John Farmer in the late '90s.

When Jim McGreevey was elected governor and appointed his attorney general, and I won't go down the road of that whole story, but believe me, it's a whole story. We have not seen an effective attorney general's office since then. That office has been underfunded. Now, the big question is, we see the courage of Matt Platkin and where he's going with this. Does he have the staff and the resources to pull off a trial of this kind?

That's going to be interesting to watch, but I'd say, this is a loss of journalism. It's about a state that is sandwiched between two media markets that don't focus on the state enough. There has been no holding politicians' feet to the fire. The stories come out, but then nothing changes. In fact, this year, we've seen transparency and the ability to get open public records. We've seen a decrease in that. We have structural problems in New Jersey with our politics.

Until we really start to go at that, understand it, and make changes-- You can get good people and bad people in government. What you need are the structures and the systems in place to create that accountability.

Brian Lehrer: Just as an addendum, maybe it's worth noting that the Biden Justice Department indicted Democrat Menendez, and the democratic state attorney general Platkin indicted the Democrat Norcross. I mention this only because a certain person is trying to campaign on the line that they single out republicans. Enough said about that. Our Nancy Solomon, listen to the new post-indictment of Norcross edition of her podcast, Dead End, a New Jersey political murder mystery, wherever you get your podcasts.

Nancy, thank you for laying it out in so much detail and with so much context for everybody now.

Nancy Solomon: Thanks, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer, on WNYC. Much more to come.

 

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