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New Jersey News

Bridgegate Goes To Court

Bridget Anne Kelly in court

In the first major court battle of what could be many in the Bridgegate saga, two former aides to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are fighting Democratic attempts to subpoena their documents in Mercer County Superior Court Tuesday.

The state legislature’s special investigative committee on Bridgegate wants emails and other documents from Bridget Kelly, Christie’s aide who declared it was time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee, and from Bill Stepien, the two-time Christie campaign manager who made disparaging remarks about the mayor of Fort Lee.

Their lawyers, though, are refusing — by pleading the fifth. That is a well-known maneuver in courtrooms when witnesses refuse to testify by using the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

But lawyers can also seek to apply that argument to documents, explains Dennis Braithwaite, a former state appellate court judge and Rutgers-Camden law professor.

"What they're saying is that by turning over these documents that they are in fact testifying in a way that could be incriminating to them," Braithwaite said. The very act of handing in the documents, they will argue, is "testimonial."

Attorneys for the Legislature are arguing Tuesday that such an interpretation restricts government’s investigatory power.

Kelly is at the hearing, but Stepien is not.