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Former Port Authority Official Flashed Badge And Cursed Cops For Pulling Over Daughter

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Will Racke Immigration and Foreign Policy Reporter
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A former Hillary Clinton aide and official with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey flashed a badge and berated police officers who had pulled over her daughter on a New Jersey state highway in March, according to police reports and a newly released dash-cam video.

During the March 31 stop, officers discovered the car’s registration was out of date and the driver’s insurance card had expired. The car would have to be impounded, officers told the driver.

All was routine until Caren Turner, who until Friday sat on the Port Authority’s board of commissioners, entered the picture.

A police video obtained through an open records request by POLITICO shows Turner approaching Tenafly, N.J. police officer Matthew Savitsky and his partner as they were speaking with the passengers outside the car.

“She immediately walked up to PO Casper and I and began attempting to hand me a business card identifying herself as ‘the commissioner of the Port Authority,'” Savitsky wrote in a report, referring to his partner. “She also exhibited a full-size gold badge in a badge wallet that had the same printed on it. She then began a line of questioning in a demanding nature.”

WATCH:

In the video, Turner repeatedly demands the officers explain why the car was pulled over, even as they calmly inform her that she can ask the driver. After mentioning her status as a Port Authority commissioner, she goes on to call both officers “a disappointment” to the police department and promises to speak with the Tenafly mayor and police chief about the incident.

Turner also becomes angry when one of the officers addresses her as “Miss.”

“No, don’t call me miss, I’m ‘commissioner,’ thank you,” she said, telling the officers they “may shut the f–k up.”

Then, in what appears to be an attempt to make the officers feel bad about inconveniencing their social betters, Turner can be heard off camera telling them that the passengers include a “Ph.D. student at Yale” and an “investment banker from London.”

“You’ve ruined their Easter, you’ve ruined their Passover,” she admonishes Savitsky, before closing with a sarcastic compliment.

“You’re very smart, I know. Very smart.”

Turner, who resigned her positing on April 20, chaired the Port Authority’s ethics committee. She was “encouraged to resign” by Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s office after the Port Authority was told about the traffic stop.

“The video speaks for itself,” Port Authority spokesman Ben Branham said in a statement, according to Politico. “The conduct was indefensible.”

Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie nominated Turner, a Democrat, to the Port Authority board in 2017. She had previously worked on finance committees for Hillary Clinton, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine.

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Will Racke