Whaddya Know, Christie's Bashing the NYT Now

Hey, remember when Chris Christie slammed MSNBC for reporting the governor's alleged misuse of Sandy funds? He called it a "partisan network" that was "almost gleeful" in their "attacks" on him. Well, he's got new targets now: David Wildstein, the former Port Authority official at the center of the Bridgegate controversy, and the New York Times, who on Friday published Wildstein's allegations that Christie knew of the bridge closures at the time.

Late Saturday, the New Jersey governor's political team sent a bizarre email entitled "5 Things You Should Know About The Bombshell That's Not A Bombshell" to donors and columnists, bashing what they called "the sloppy reporting" of the New York Times and once again defending the governor's innocence.

"A media firestorm was set off by sloppy reporting from the New York Times and their suggestion that there was actually 'evidence' when it was a letter alleging that 'evidence exists,'" the email reads.

"As he has said repeatedly, Governor Christie had no involvement, knowledge or understanding of the real motives behind David Wildstein's scheme to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge," it adds.

Saturday's email goes on to attack Wildstein's character, in a surreal bullet-point list that includes the fact that Wildstein "was publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher of deceptive behavior" and "was an anonymous blogger known as Wally Edge." Whatever that means.

"Bottom line — David Wildstein will do and say anything to save David Wildstein," the email concludes unconvincingly.

Christie has been trying to distance himself from the Port Authority official — long known as the governor's "eyes and ears" inside the authority — for a while now. In his over-the-top, marathon January speech (during which he artfully managed to both take full responsibility for the Bridgegate scandal while also deflecting all blame from himself), the governor claimed that he had no history with Wildstein, and in fact barely interacted with the official. That story hasn't held well under scrutiny, though — not only are their recent pictures of the two men all over the papers, but it's even been revealed that the two were part of the same baseball team in high school.

The governor — who's been considered the 2016 Republican darling for a possible presidential nomination — has repeatedly denied having ordered the life-threatening lane closures in Fort Lee, N.J. He's also recently been accused of using Sandy funds as political slush money, and, only yesterday, it was revealed he may have willfully delayed implementing a law that would have made sure the aid money was properly used.