Gawker Goes To Court, Aims To Reveal Connection Between Roger Ailes And Gov. Chris Christie

by Alex Alvarez | 1:04 pm, July 25th, 2011

» 22 comments

Gawker and its resident investigative reporter, John Cook, are planning to file a civil suit today against Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as part of the site’s investigation into whether Christie communicated with Fox News president Roger Ailes… and whether Ailes has a direct hand in politics.

Gawker’s investigation was inspired by New York magazine’s recent, much-publicized profile on Ailes, which noted that the chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group called Christie and encouraged him to campaign in 2012 (an option, it should be noted, that Christie has repeatedly stated he won’t pursue). Cook had recently looked into publicly available documents dating back from Ailes’ time working with the Nixon administration.

Cook had previously called Christie’s office directly in an effort to obtain evidence of telephone, mail or email correspondence between Christie and Ailes, only to be told that, were such records to exist, they would be exempt from New Jersey’s open public records act due to “executive privilege and well-settled case law.” A spokesperson for Ailes told the gossip site that “Whatever the governor wants to do is his business.” Christie had claimed executive privilege before, when legislators requested records about an error in his “Race to the Top” application, although he eventually provided these when legislators threatened to issue a subpoena to obtain the requested information.

In June, Christie attended a dinner with Ailes as well as prominent conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, later refusing to discuss the meal with the press.

The American Civil Liberties Union has since taken up Gawker’s case.

Cook shared his plans moving forward with The New York Times:

The next thing that I would like to be publicly acknowledged is not just that they’re ideological — they’re not just the TV equivalent of The Weekly Standard or something — they are actually a power base within the Republican Party.

Cook is by no means alone in his assessment. Ailes’ possible role in politics has been discussed by many, including Tim Dickinson, who wrote an in-depth piece on Ailes for Rolling Stone.

h/t New York Times

Chris Christie, fox news, Gawker, John Cook, lawsuit, Roger Ailes

SNAPTIE

Hey ACLU go after this if you dare. Eric Holders botched killing machine Fast and Furious gunrunning just gets better with time. ATF,FBI,DOJ refuse to explain how two suspects obtained more than 360 weapons despite criminal records that should have prevented them from buying even one gun. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/25/feds-refuse-to-explain-why-proper-background-checks-werent-conducted-on-fast/
Harry Flashman

Christie had dinner with Ailes? That’s it, then. Tar and feathers for everyone. Damning evidence if I ever saw it.

Desperate much, guys?

Let me ask this…so what if Ailes encouraged Christie to run? Rich and connected Dem supporters don’t encourage potentiallly friendly Democrats to run? I note that the same bunch isn’t overly curious about George Soros and his impact on leftist politics, or on the cash donations Obama received from the Middle East. I wonder who was encouraging him to run? If we have to depend on the media to tell us, we’ll never know.

I love the smell of lefty desperation in the morning. Smells like victory. For conservatives.

Come on 2012.
Anonymous

So funny that Tea Party people are so laissez faire when it comes to clear incidents of conflicts of interests. At least let an investigation happen.

Starting to think that the Tea Party might be a plot from an old, shitty, Roger Moore-era Bond film.
r3t0dd

You sound desperate. Why not let the investigation follow through? What are you afraid of?
Anonymous

This should be interesting.
Anonymous

And the media has lower likability polling than the congress? Wonder why….
Jerry Baustian

Quote: “Gawker’s investigation was inspired by New York magazine’s recent, much-publicized profile on Ailes”

Well there you go — basing a call for investigation on a New York magazine article? How absurd! That would be like investigating John Edwards based on a National Enquirer article. Oh wait, the Enquirer story was right, when it alleged Edwards had broken the law. What crime is Gawker alleging was committed?

If there is a freedom-of-information act in New Jersey, I doubt that it covers conversations over a dinner table. When I am having a meal, I don’t record my conversations or keep a transcript, and doubt any governor in the country does either.

Presumably some lawyer is going to get paid for this, but I hope the taxpayers don’t have to pick up the tab.
Anonymous

Huh? Seriously? You think a broad silly, probably fictitious poll about the whole of the media is some sort of support of your hatred of Gawker?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NWVKX2P2QBPQ6FHQHCHVIC2ALQ Fedup in Florida

So let me see if I get this right… It has pretty much been shown that MSNBC is directed by the White House not only in it’s talking points, but it’s content as well… Threatened by the DNC and it’s billion dollar advertising budget so keep the DNC’s proprogandist in front of viewers 24/5 as they can’t really afford programing on the weekends… and now the left is crying foul because Ailes and Christe had dinner and shared a couple of phone calls?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NWVKX2P2QBPQ6FHQHCHVIC2ALQ Fedup in Florida

So let me see if I get this right… It has pretty much been shown that MSNBC is directed by the White House not only in it’s talking points, but it’s content as well… Threatened by the DNC and it’s billion dollar advertising budget so keep the DNC’s proprogandist in front of viewers 24/5 as they can’t really afford programing on the weekends… and now the left is crying foul because Ailes and Christe had dinner and shared a couple of phone calls?
http://twitter.com/aipfan aipfan

The violation of NJ OPRA law is not so much that they didn’t turn over e-mails relating to correspondence with Roger Ailes, but rather that the refusal letter didn’t identify whether the records existed or not, and how many records there are. The theory is that an agency cannot truly know if there is any non-exempt portion if they don’t look at the documents, or at least ask others for a summary of what’s in the records.

They’re probably technically correct, and I wish them the best of luck. It’ll be good precedent for future investigations that are actually worthwhile.
Anonymous

Christi is a conservative; this isnothing more than another witch hunt speared on by the extreme left wing and most likely paid for by George Soros.
http://profiles.google.com/wingsofabird helen holmes

Harry, you are right on the money. Roger Ailes is permitted to hold political views as is the Chairman of NBC, CBS or ABC. Now those last three and CNN and MSNBC certainly are far from objective in their coverage of anything. They in fact smoothed the Presdent’s way into the White House by providing only superficial coverage of the candidate of their choice.

I live in NJ and just pray Christie does not run in 2012 because we need him here so badly. The mess of years of corruption takes time to clean up as does finding ways to get our State’s spending in line with a reasonable amount of taxation of the people who receive not the world’s best of services.

So now it’s a crime to take someone out to dinner? That just doesn’t fly and I couldn’t agree more about not just Soros but all the fund raising and dinners that our sitting President is attending all of the time. Those dinners are for the rich who pay heavily to get the ear of the President. I doubt if Governor Christie did one bit of fund raising at this dinner in a public restaurant of all places with two people in attendance.

This is a non-issue created by the desperate. People in high or low places are allowed to dine together unless some new Nanny laws were passed today.
http://profiles.google.com/wingsofabird helen holmes

I am afraid of a single taxpayer penny being wasted on yet another investigation that is not needed. It is legal to dine with whomever you want and I can’t recall ever seeing or reading a law that requires politicians to tape record their table talk. Now that’s something those of you who have too much time on your hands might want to support.

We seem to be close to bankruptcy, however, so every dumb idea such as this “investigation” has to be shot down at the get go so we learn how to spend money judiciously.
http://profiles.google.com/wingsofabird helen holmes

Again, all of you who think this is a brilliant idea ought to be willing to pay for the investigation out of your own funds. Most of us cannot afford this sort of nonsense at this particular point in time.
http://twitter.com/aipfan aipfan

OPRA requests are not free. When the request was made, it noted that the requester was willing to pay up to $100 for the records. Instead of complying with OPRA law and stating that ‘x’ number of records were found but are exempt under ‘y’ provision, the executive branch lawyer improperly brushed it off.

Lo and behold, once the lawsuit was filed, they partially backtracked. — http://www.app.com/article/20110725/NJNEWS10/307250107/Christie-s-office-claims-privilege-backtracks
jimmygeewhiz

Christie is a Murdoch tool and it was proven when he was threatened with a lawsuit but he decided to relent after he was caught in a lie. He’s nothing but a loud mouth bully pushing his way through life with his bigger than life girth.
jimmygeewhiz

It was paid for by Murdoch. Learn your ABC’s.
jimmygeewhiz

What you say is exactly how it went.
jimmygeewhiz

You link a Fox web site? How funny. Fox is known not to be very trust worthy or haven’t your read?
Jerry Baustian

Gee whiz, Jimmy — if that is your real name — it would seem that Fox News is more credible than Some Guy With A Funny Name.

Why would we believe you but not Fox News?
Anonymous

fiat uno