PHOTOS: Chris Christie Freaks Out As He’s Busted At Jersey Shore
Governor Chris Christie was caught red-handed at the New Jersey shore. Paparazzi captured the moment Christie realized the jig is up, and he has been in damage control mode all day long. Whether you love or hate Christie, you’ll be amazed by his bravado as many New Jersey citizens are completely pissed off by his actions. You don’t want to miss this.
A dispute between Gov. Chris Christie and the Democratic leader in the state’s General Assembly, Vincent Prieto, has blocked the Legislature from passing a state budget. Their fight is over a plan to overhaul control of the state’s largest health insurer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, a non-profit that operates under special state laws.
Christie ordered all “non-essential” state services to be closed down and that includes the Jersey Shore, which is a huge destination for the 4th of July weekend. Police are stationed, blocking entrances, and anyone caught on the beach could be arrested. So, when a seasoned photographer got a hunch, he got his crew and they went up in a Cessna plane.
Scouring the Jersey Shore, Andrew Mills was looking for a large figure on the sand, which wasn’t too hard to spot. Sure enough, Mills’ intuition was right. The only people on the beach were Christie and his family, soaking up the sun.
“In my 23 years as a photojournalist, I’ve been on enough stakeouts to know when I’ve been made, and Gov. Chris Christie looked right at me as I pointed the long-range lens at him from the Cessna about a thousand feet above Island Beach State Park in Berkeley Township on Sunday,” reports Mills.
Mills captures Christie with his wife Mary Pat seated next to him, both in beach chairs. Around them are his kids and extended family. Christie can access the beach from the Governor’s beach house, and he ordered his security detail to stand guard.
Mills recalled the moment Christie looked him right in the eye, saying, “Most of the time, I get the shots and make a clean getaway. But once in a while, when the eyes meet, you know the jig is up.” He added, “[I]t wasn’t difficult to find him. There Christie was, with family and friends, on a long and empty stretch of beach near the governor’s shore residence, nobody else within a country mile.”
Reporting for NJ.com, Mills continued, “In one photo, Christie looks me dead in the eye. He has to know what’s happening. Why else would a plane make two passes over his private beach party when there’s no one else around? Did we know he would be sunbathing on a closed beach? No, but we took a shot and it paid off.”
Christie then made the huge mistake of saying in a presser that he did not “get any sun” that day. His poor press secretary had to make up a story, saying, “Well, he was wearing a hat, so he didn’t get any sun.” When that went over like a lead balloon, Christie said the beach house is separate from the park and that his family does not ask for any state services. Christie, who is in his final months in office, added, “Run for governor, and you can have a residence there.”
Chris Christie is always confrontational when the media presses him, and in his point of view, it’s the Democrats who refuse to come to the table and compromise on a doable budget. His getting caught was probably a run of bad luck, considering the citizens of New Jersey are pissed off that they can’t access the shore. I can understand their disappointment, and Christie should have realized this wasn’t the best time to throw a beach party.