It's semantics really. There was no lawsuit because it was settled of court, very likely with a gag order. The guy hit was paid to shut up.

Why should he be concerned about this particular lie?? There's no intern sex involved. And this can be spun as a "do not recall" lie, as in "I meant to say 'Nope, can't recall any lawsuit."

Don't tell this story to Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. He'll spin this as a negative for Gov Corzine. Daily Kos is getting more like Huffington Post. That's a negative.

I seem to remember that that Gov. Corzine's car (driven by State trooper) was doing 91 MPH on NJ Parkway. There was no emergency (but the emergency lights were on) and Gov. Corzine was not wearing a seat belt. The blame was placed on another vehicle which was alledged to be driving in an unsafe manner. Both Gov. Corzine and the State trooper were injured in the crash.

I have always thought is humorous that it was the other vehicle that was accused of driving in a reckless manner. So Gov. Corzine risks the lives of innocent NJ drivers in order to get to a political event on time. I was unaware that racing to a political event was a valid excuse for speeding.

Christie's "Sweater"is Unraveling.

Let's lay out the facts as have been reported on the TPM family.

Christie was put in as US Attorney to groom him to run state wide at some point.

Christie apparently violated explicit Justice rules not to ever use his position in a non-official capacity--especially not to get out of a traffic ticket. It can be argued that he was on official business at the motorcycle accident but not the stop for driving an unregistered car without insurance as Josh has noted.

Christie has just lied to a reporter about the lawsuit from the motorcycle accident.

Christie has now said that the motorcyclist hit him as Christie was driving the wrong way on a one way street. (This alone will defeat him because it is so open to ridicule--he also violated the first rule of politics: never tell a lie no one can believe.)

The court clerk said the lawsuit dismissal as it was entered usually indicates that there has been a settlement. [I am an attorney, and this sound correct to me.]

The motorcyclist-victim quickly hung up on the reporter after acknowledging the suit.

Questions/conclusions.

When did Justice learn of Christie's apparent egregious violation of explicit Justice rules and is he being investigated? [The reason, I suspect, outraged, career Justice attorneys are talking to Josh is that under same facts they would probably get fired.]

If Christie was in fact on official business when he let the motorcyclist hit his car, who settled the lawsuit: Justice or his private insurance carrier?

If the private insurance carrier handled the suit, then it must have received (or sought) reimbursement from Justice for whatever it paid out if Christie was actually on official business.

If Christie was on official business, why didn't the private insurance carrier (if that is who handled the claim) move to dismiss on the grounds that the motorcyclist-victim had to sue under the Federal Tort Claims Act?

Given the motorcyclist-victim's reaction to the reporter, I strongly suspect that the settlement contained a clause requiring him to never, ever talk to anyone about the lawsuit and "incident" under penalty of having to pay back all the money plus additional monetary penalties. This is quite unusual in a traffic case and usually only found when corporations are covering up their wrong-doing.