A $46,000 mortgage loan to a subordinate at the Department of Justice, with payments of $499/month, including interest has now been acknowledged.
"I never thought of it as an asset," [said former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and Republican candidate for Governor] Christopher Christie today. "I saw it as money we loaned to friends who were in financial trouble and they were paying us back."
He said he was amending his tax returns and all his disclosure reports, according to the Star Ledger account.
Now, to be clear, Chris Christie has long struck me as a bully and a grandstander.
But that's enough money to be an asset. When I prepare my monthly budget I show the $1,000 loan to my boat club as an asset.
The dodgy explanation presents a character issue. A more likely explanation than oversight is that lending money to your fellow public employee subordinate at the U.S. attorney's office is an embarassing and bad idea. It creates loyalties and obligations that could interfere with independent professional judgment on the many matters of public policy that are confronted by the United States Department of Justice. And as supervisor one would be slow to discharge an employee who owed her superior such a substantial sum.
The New York City Charter Sec. 2604 (b) prudently declares making such a loan to be "prohibited conduct":
"14. No public servant shall enter into any business or financial relationship with another public servant who is a superior or subordinate of such public servant."
A loan from a subordinate would be more grave, but the basic principle is plain enough: the public is entitled, and the Rules of Professional Conduct require, a lawyer for the public to make independent judgments. Being indebted to your boss - the chief federal law enforcement officer in the state - threatens that independence.
The Rules of Professional Conduct are directed to the problem of conflicts of interest regarding current or past clients. They don't fit this circumstance. A more apt analogy is Canon 5 of the federal Code of Conduct for United States Judges. It enjoins financial transactions that may "interfere with the proper performance of judicial duties, exploit the judicial position, or involve the judge in frequent transactions with lawyers or other persons likely to come before the court on which the judge serves."
Since the U.S. Attorney as a federal law enforcement officer must, like Caesar's wife, avoid even the "appearance of impropriety" the judicial canons are a more apt fit.
The mortgage and loan here suggest a risk of favoritism and cronyism that present a significant basis for criticism of Mr. Christie's conduct that voters should consider when judging whether or not to take his campaign claims for himself at face value.
p.s. August 25, 2009 - Michele Brown resigned today as First Assistant U.S. Attorney, to avoid being a distraction in the work of the office of the U.S. Attorney.
Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra assured the office will continue to be distracted by the controversy as, according to the Star Ledger, he responded angrily to Brown's resignation:
"I know how distracting these transitions can be, and this one has been made more difficult as the Office has been unfairly drawn into a political campaign through the barrage of FOIA requests; the purported controversy over Michele's personal loan, and a wholly trumped up (and then apparently leaked) complaint, reportedly about my generic and general comments at the Bid Rig press conference and the timing of the Bid Rig takedown," Marra wrote, referring to the FBI code name for the series of corruption arrests. "We owe it to the public and ourselves to keep the work of the Office going at our usual pace and at our usual standard of excellence."
Image: Christopher Christie with Michele Brown and Jeff Chiesa, a former aide
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