[4] He attended Livingston High School in the late 1970s, where he was a classmate (one year ahead) of future governor Chris Christie.
[7] After graduating from high school, Wildstein attended college in Washington, D.C., working on a presidential campaign and as a political consultant while a student.
[7] He served as executive director of the New Jersey Legislature's Legislative Caucus on Israel to deal with Jewish-related foreign policy,[8] according to a 1983 JTA report.
[9][10] Over the course of his political career, he worked for a number of other New Jersey Republican politicians, including two congressmen, Chris Smith and Bob Franks.
In 2010, Wildstein was appointed by newly installed Governor Chris Christie's senior representative at the Port Authority, Bill Baroni, to serve as the agency's Director of Interstate Capital Projects, making Wildstein the second highest-ranking Christie political appointee among the agency's executives, after Baroni himself.
[4] This position had never existed at the Port Authority prior to Wildstein's appointment and had no job description, but drew an annual salary of $150,020.
[7] Boburg has said Wildstein "made a point to stay in the shadows and be the person directing the show from behind the curtains" and "was known for walking the halls, monitoring other executives.
From September 9 through September 13, 2013, two of the three lanes providing local access to a Fort Lee entrance to the bridge were closed on Wildstein's orders without notification of local government officials, emergency responders, or other Port Authority officials, resulting in massive traffic congestion and delays for the community of Fort Lee.
In early December 2013, just days before the state legislature was scheduled to begin hearings to investigate the lane closures, Wildstein announced his resignation, saying he had planned to leave the agency the following year but "the Fort Lee issue has been a distraction, and I think it's better to move on earlier.
In an eight-word email, Christie's deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, wrote to Wildstein in August 2013, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.
"[16] In an email exchange about fallout over the lane closures between Wildstein and Christie's campaign chief and closest political confidante, Bill Stepien, Wildstein wrote, "It will be a tough November for this little Serbian," apparently referring to Fort Lee's Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich (who is actually of Croatian, not Serbian, ancestry).
"[26] In the plea hearing, Wildstein admitted that he had conspired with Baroni and Kelly to shut down the lanes and cause significant traffic problems in retribution for Sokolich's decision not to endorse Christie for reelection.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote, in the court's opinion: “For no reason other than political payback, Baroni and Kelly used deception to reduce Fort Lee’s access lanes to the George Washington Bridge—and thereby jeopardized the safety of the town’s residents.
We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”[33] New Jersey Globe was founded by Wildstein in early 2018.
It is a news website with original reporting and analysis on New Jersey politics that was founded as part of Sea of Reeds Media.