Well, lookee here, some things never change, even after 62 years. Randy Mastro is a partner at the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Tasked by the governor to lead the internal review of the Bridgegate scandal, which conveniently cleared Christie of any wrongdoings in the matter. The Fix found a very interesting connection to another embattled politician trying to get out from under scandalous allegations.
It's a small world, and the political one is even smaller.
The political story that drove much of the week was the release of an internal reportcommissioned by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) that determined that the governor had no prior knowledge of the apparent political payback scheme to cause a traffic jam by closing close several lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge.
But, in political circles, the firm may be best known as the one that conducted a 1952 probe into whether vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon unethically accepted gifts and financial contributions while campaigning -- a scandal that almost forced the then-senator to resign from the GOP ticket.
With the scandal swirling, GOP presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower ordered an independent investigation -- conducted by Gibson Dunn -- which ultimately concluded that Nixon had not behaved improperly.
Armed with that conclusion, Nixon traveled to Los Angeles and delivered his now-famous "Checkers speech," a 30-minute televised addressed in which he declared he had done nothing wrong, praised the Gibson Dunn law firm as "one of the best ones in Los Angeles," and asked Americans to write letters to the RNC and voice their support for his candidacy.
And isn't Gov. Chris Christie doing the exact same thing? He's armed himself with his self-serving investigation and going on TV along with his surrogates claiming his innocent in the Bridgegate scandal?
How did that work out for the United States of America and Richard Nixon?
