Rumors surfaced this week that New Jersey governor and potential 2016 candidate Chris Christie was facing a new criminal investigation.
MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” of all places, found out that those rumors are not quite true Friday.
“Any characterization that we are investigating the Governor about this is just not true,” the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey told MSNBC. “[W]e talk to people all the time. It doesn’t mean we’re investigating anybody.”
According to the MSNBC report, there was a person questioned about an allegation against the Christie administration, but even that individual admits that there is no “full-blown” investigation.
“I’ve never characterized this as a full-blown investigation,” Ben Barlyn, a former assistant county prosecutor in New Jersey, told the news network.
This report led Rachel Maddow to call the claims of a criminal investigation against Christie “false” on her show Friday night.
This is in contrast to a Thursday ABC News report that claimed Barlyn had “confirmed” there was an ongoing investigation. It appeared he had only confirmed federal investigators had interviewed him.
Barlyn brought a “whistleblower” case against the Christie administration shortly after being dismissed from his position at the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office in September 2010. He claims he was fired for questioning the dismissal of charges against the county sheriff and two of his deputies. His case is still in what’s called a “discovery phase.”
Christie’s office characterized Barlyn’s claims as “conspiratorial nonsense.”