Bridgegate Was No Shock for Chris Christie, Prosecutors Tell Jury

"When David Wildstein spoke, Gov. Chris Christie's voice came out and everybody knew it," said Baldassare , an attorney with the firm Baldassare & Mara.

Before making his way into politics, Wildstein was a carpet salesman. Now facing up to 15 years in prison for the Bridgegate scandal, he is trading scalps to get his time reduced, Baldassare said.

"A head was needed, and David Wildstein's simply wasn't enough," Baldassere told the jury.

Hinting at plans to argue that Christie was directly involved in the lane closures, Baldassere said Wildstein's testimony implicates people "at the highest levels of the government in New Jersey and at the very, very top of the Port Authority."

Khanna agreed that Wildstein was "the one who came up with the idea" for the lane shutdown. But he said "Baroni blessed it."

Baldassare spent much of his argument this morning expanding on the "dirty tricks" that the prosecution said Wildstein was accustomed to employing as a political animal.

"The government made a deal with the devil and they're stuck with him," the attorney said.

If prosecutors plan to get reliable testimony from Wildstein, they have their work cut out for them, Baldassere added, noting that the government had to prep this particular witness 14 times just for the grand jury.

Attorney Critchley also slammed Wildstein as a "fraudster" who has made a "scapegoat" of Kelly.

Critchley noted that his client, a mother of four, had little input on policy decisions and was primarily a "scheduler" for Christie's office, helping in such tasks as arranging food for the governor's box at MetLife Stadium for Giants or Jets games.

"Let's not elevate her to some grandiose position," Critchley told the jury.

Critchley also downplayed the electronic evidence against client. In one 2013 text message to Wildstein in 2013, Kelly had little sympathy for the schoolchildren getting stuck in the bridge traffic.

"Is it wrong that I'm smiling," Kelly had asked.

Critchley chalked up the text to "joking banter" that Kelly now regrets.

Wildstein had returned Kelly's volley, the messages showed. "These are the children of Buono voters," Wildstein wrote, referring to Democrat Barbara Buono who had lost the gubernatorial race to Christie in 2013.

There is a disparaging remark about Mayor Sokolich's Croation heritage in the evidence as well. "It will be a tough November for this little Serbian," Wildstein wrote.

Sokolich is expected to testify over the next month, as is Fort Lee's police chief.

A more damning bit of evidence against Baroni includes Wildstein's text that an official at the Port Authority was "helping us to retaliate."

While Baroni told New Jersey legislators that the shutdown was part of a Port Authority traffic study, Port Authority officials have admitted the traffic study was a retroactive excuse for the shutdown.

Baldassare and Critchley both spent a portion of their arguments today defending the study as "legitimate."

Critchley said the traffic study focused on how traffic would "balance out" if the lanes unofficially designated for Fort Lee traffic were given over to general commuter traffic.

As for the repeated calls by Fort Lee's mayor pleading for help, Baldassere said Baroni could not answer them because it would mess up the traffic study.

U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton is presiding over the case, which is expected to take six to eight weeks. Five men and seven women serve on the jury.

Follow @NickRummell

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