AMHERST, N.H. — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he made the decision to stop billing taxpayers for the cost of entertaining guests in luxury boxes at three New Jersey sports venues in part because he was worried about the appearance of impropriety.
Records show that Christie spent $85,000 in public money to entertain in the boxes between 2010 and early 2012, when the state Republican party took over those expenses and reimbursed the state for those already incurred.
Speaking to reporters after greeting breakfast diners in Amherst, New Hampshire, Christie said he thought it was "completely justifiable" to use a discretionary fund for the entertaining, but decided to end the practice so that nobody could accuse him of spending taxpayer dollars 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.
The change was made less than a year after Christie came under fire for using a state helicopter to attend one of his son's baseball games and the year before he ran for re-election.
Christie, who is in the early-voting state as he prepares for a likely presidential campaign, said that most of his sports box entertaining is done at football games, and that he invites people from both parties and different interest groups to spend time speaking with him privately.
He said that since 2012, the state party has been paying for all entertaining done in the box — even it's not political.
"I just think it was just the right thing to do and that's why we decided to do it," he said.
