Democrats are taking direct aim at former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who is now the Republican nominee for Governor of New Jersey -- with aggressive accusations that his office did something fishy in awarding special contracts for monitoring corporations.

As we posted yesterday, Christie appeared yesterday before a House Judiciary subcommittee, looking into his involvement in a deferred prosecution agreement -- deals by which corporations in legal trouble would avoid prosecution and agree to hire law firms to oversee their operations. At the hearing, Dems hammered Christie with questions about a super-expensive deal secured by former Attorney General John Ashcroft's law firm.

The New Jersey Democrats put out a press release openly accusing Christie of lying to Congress, by saying that there was not a genuine impasse in negotiating the contracts when the Dems say there in fact was one. The press release even goes so far as to cite the federal statute outlawing false statements to Congress, with a penalty of up to eight years imprisonment!

New Jersey Democratic Congressmen Bill Pascrell and Frank Pallone testified in favor of their bill to regulate the agreements. "This is a ransom note, not a billing statement," Pascrell said of one case. And Pallone said: "Without a legislative fix, basically U.S. Attorneys will continue to write their own rules, and that leads to a broad spectrum of practices - often bad practices"

After he left the hearing -- even as Democrats were attempting to ask him more questions, after the previously-agreed upon time for his presence -- Christie called the whole thing a "political circus." And he released this statement:

"I am glad I had the opportunity to discuss in detail the good work the U.S. Attorney's office was able to accomplish reforming corrupt industries, protecting taxpayer dollars and ultimately, saving jobs. Our work was again reaffirmed today when one of the leaders of President Obama's Justice Department said that the Administration opposes the Pallone/Pascrell legislation and has no plans to change the process in place for deferred prosecution agreements. Clearly, the Obama Administration understands these procedures help give U.S. Attorneys the tools they need to achieve real, meaningful reform and save tax dollars, not just play for political headlines."

And this afternoon, the DNC has just released this Web video, called "Temper Temper Mr. Christie," attacking Christie for having gotten into verbal tussles with committee Democrats: