New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) appeared to issue conflicting statements to the press Thursday, telling reporters that he first learned of emails tying his staff to "bridgegate" yesterday morning, but also claiming he had "lost a lot of sleep for the last two nights."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie gestures during a news conference Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014, at the Statehouse in Trenton, N.J. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
The conflicting comments, highlighted by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, came at a lengthy press conference Christie held Thursday.
"I was done with my workout yesterday morning and got a call from my communications director at about 8:50, 8:55 informing me of this story that had just broken on the Bergen Record website," the governor, who is widely expected to launch a 2016 bid for president, said. "That was the first time I knew about this, that was the first time I had seen any of the documents that were revealed yesterday."
“If people find that hard to believe, I don’t know that else to say except to tell them that I had no knowledge this, the planning, the execution or anything about it," he added. "And that I first found out about it after it was over.”
However, in a response to a question from CNN's John King, Christie suggested he had been aware of the scandal for a bit longer.
“I haven’t had a lot of sleep for the past two nights and I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching,” he said. “I’m sick over this. I have worked for the last 12 years in public life developing a reputation for honesty and directness and blunt talk, one that I think is well deserved.”
These seemingly conflicting statements now have people questioning when exactly the governor first knew of the scandal.
"Why can’t he sleep two nights ago if he only learned about this one day ago?" Limbaugh asked on his radio show Thursday.
The Raw Story touched on the issue in a story titled, "If Chris Christie only learned about emails yesterday, why ‘two’ sleepless nights?"
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