Jennifer A. Borg and CJ Griffin Comment on Former Governor Christie Standing in the Way of Transparency
Jennifer A. Borg and CJ Griffin members of Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C.'s Media Law Group were quoted on MapLight.com’s article, "MapLight Suing New Jersey, Chris Christie for Release of Jared Kushner Correspondence."
“This administration should not allow Christie or attorneys acting on his behalf to be the only and final arbiter of which records get released, nor should it allow him to be the one conducting the search for the records,” said Jennifer Borg, a lawyer at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden in Hackensack, N.J. “Such a process is riddled with conflicts -- like asking a student to grade his or her own exam.”
Borg said that the guidelines in Christie’s letter violate the New Jersey’s records law, explaining that it “requires a public employee, the custodian, to search for and review records prior to their release. Although custodians can seek assistance and legal advice when responding to requests, they cannot abdicate their responsibility -- especially not to a private person who has no accountability to the public.
C.J. Griffin, another lawyer at Pashman Stein, said the state shouldn’t “say Christie gets to decide what is and what isn’t disclosed, which is what they’re doing now.
“I find it troubling, but honestly it’s not out of character,” she said. “Christie was not a proponent of transparency, so the fact that he’s standing in the way of transparency even after he’s out of office is not shocking to me.”
To read the article in entirety, please click here.
