New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's spokesmen are steaming mad after a conservative organization attacked his use of an expense account for 해머캔디 한국 공식 총판 $300,000 in food, drinks and desserts over five years - and suggested the famously hirsute pol was eating taxpayers all the way to the poorhouse.

Conclusions in the report from Watchdog.org, a project of the conservative Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, were 'crap' and a 'deliberate fabrication,' Christie spokesman Brian Murray told Daily Mail Online.

The organization teased its Monday story by describing 'a story of appetite and ambition, one that pits government waste versus the New Jersey governor's waistline.'

Christie's office receives a $95,000 annual allowance from the New Jersey treasury for expenses including private events and operating the governor's mansion. It typically spends less than his limit, burning through an average of $72,000 and returning $23,000 to the state. 

Kevin Roberts, Christie's principal spokesman, said the costs 'are associated with official reception[s]. Watchdog had zero reason to connect this to anything else and he presents no evidence. ... It's not a personal expense account for food.'




WE SPENT WHAT? Christie, a possible Republican presidential candidate, burned through $300,000 in a government expense account on food, beverages and sweets during five years





'CRAP!': Christie's office had harsh words for the Franklin Center's investigative reporting outlet, which it said had put out an 'outrageous' story suggesting the guv was using an expense account as a grocery slush fund






CHEAP SHOT? Christie lost more than 100 pounds after a lap-band surgery shrank the useable part of his stomach

Murray added that Christie 'does not handle these expenses' himself.

'He doesn't take out a pocket of cash and go to these events to pay for them,' he said Monday. 'The governor is not swiping a debit card on this stuff. His staff is handling this.'

Murray took special exception to the Watchdog report's claim that the governor's shrinking dietary needs after his 2013 stomach surgery had also 'shrunk Christie's supermarket bills.'

Christie has lost a reported 100 pounds since having an inflatable gastric band implanted around the upper portion of his stomach.

At the same time as his date with a scalpel, however, he was running for re-election and traveling nationally on behalf of the Republican Governor's Association, which he chaired.

Both involved dozens of events paid for by organizations other than his governor's office, which was hosting fewer events of its own.

Christie's allowance account did spend less on food, drinks and desserts in this period, compared with 2011 and 2012. But Murray called it 'outrageous' to connect that to the governor's weight loss.

The idea that the expense account put food in Christie's personal pantry, he said, 'is exactly the crap Watchdog tried to exploit.' 




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YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK? Gov. Christie's official expense account paid $1,250 to The Cravory, a cookie delivery service, in December 2013

Among the expenses detailed in the ledger released by the governor's office: $76,373 at Wegmans grocery stores, $11,971 at ShopRite supermarkets and $6,536 on seven trips to ShopRite's liquor stores.

And then there was a single $2,569 payment to Giambri's, a candy-maker, eleven days before Christmas in 2012, and $1,250 a year later to The Cravory, a cookie delivery service.

The Franklin Center did not immediately provide a comment on the record.

Mark Lagerkvist, who wrote the story for the organization's Watchdog project, said Christie's office was 'hypocritical and self-serving,' and criticized it for not explaining the reasons the governor's office spent so much.

'The records released by the governor's office did not provide any reasons for the purchases,' Lagerkvist told Daily Mail Online. 'There was no mention of any official receptions or other events.'

The ledger, however, does include numerous references to 'catering' fees, 'tent' rentals and other costs typically associated with large affairs - and most grocery bills were for amounts over $1,000.

Roberts told Daily Mail Online that Lagerkvist 'never came to us for comment.'

'He flatly never contacted us for today's piece,' Roberts reiterated, calling the story and 'irresponsible hack job.' 


He said he had provided Watchdog.org with the spending ledger, the same one the Associated Press reported on Thursday.





CAMPAIGN 2016: Christie has been criss-crossing New Hampshire and Iowa, building support for a possible presidential run 





WILLY WONKA FOR PRESIDENT: Just 11 days before Christmas in 2012, Christie's expense account paid $2,569 to this New Jersey chocolatier

'Whenever the Governor hosts an event in his official capacity, the discretionary account is available to pay for those costs associated with official reception and hosting and related incidental expenses,' Roberts explained in a statement at the time.

The AP was at the time investigating why the governor's expense account paid $83,000 for food and drink concessions during New York Giants and Jets NFL games between 2010 and early 2012. 

Roberts said in the same statement that the New Jersey Republican Party had already reimbursed the state for those expenses in 2012.

A party official said the NJGOP sent the government a check and began paying for those expenses moving forward as soon as the governor learned about them from his aides.


The luxury boxes themselves are typically provided to the state free of charge by the owners of sports arenas, specifically for the governor's use.


Christie told reporters on Friday in New Hampshire that it's 'completely justifiable' to use a discretionary fund for entertaining bigwigs in sports arena luxury boxes. But he chose to end the practice, he said, so no one could hammer him for spending taxpayer money on politics.

'Quite frankly, in today's world where everything is kind of twisted and turned to look like it's something wrong when it isn't, I just said in 2012 to my folks, "Listen, let's just have the state party pay for this, so to the extent there's anybody there who's political, people can't make the argument that we're using taxpayer money for anything that even looks like politics",' he said.




TROUBLE AT HOME: The governor's expense account may be the least of his problems, as the 'Bridgegate' scandal's criminal indictments were handed down last week







Spending $72,000 per year - or $6,000 per month - on official entertaining by a sitting governor may seem paltry compared to the White House's budget for State Dinners, but the squabble is a signpost pointing to tensions between conservatives and moderates inside the Republican Party.

As the 2016 presidential election draws near, some on the party's right flank are trying to discourage the plain-talking but socially moderate Christie from running.

'And why not?' asked an aide to a prominent Democratic assemblyman in New Jersey's state capital of Trenton.

'The governor is too middle-of-the-road for his own party and too evil for New Jersey,' the legislative staffer said on Monday, referring to the 'Bridgegate' scandal swirling around him.

'Christie has been burning bridges for years, and it looks like one of them is finally hot enough to make him sweat.'



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