Last month, he said the two have known each other for “the last five years.” In June of 2014, he said he first spoke to the Texas billionaire when he was running for governor for the first time in 2009.
Why does it matter?
Normally, it wouldn’t. But when Christie went to the Cowboys playoff game against the Detroit Lions in Dallas earlier this month — remember, the one with THE hug? — his ticket and transportation were paid for by Jones.
As it turns out, Jones partially owns a company that was awarded a Port Authority contract by New Jersey and New York in March 2013.
So that’s why reporters have been trying to nail down just when exactly Christie and Jones started their now famous bromance. Did they meet before or after that contract was awarded?
Christie brushed off ethics concerns as “just craziness” and he maintains that, despite previous statements, the two began their friendship later in 2013, after the contract.
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January 7, 2014 – Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts says the governor’s friendship with Jones “started in the summer of 2013.”
“Whether they first met or spoke in 2010 or 2011 in a passing way, I can’t account for that,” he adds.
Rich Dalrymple, a spokesman for the Cowboys, also says Christie and Jones met at a Dallas football game in 2013 after Jones learned of Christie’s love for the Cowboys that summer. “Their relationship is totally based on the governor’s following the Dallas Cowboys–there is nothing political about it at all,” Dalrymple tells the Wall Street Journal.
January 11, 2015 – Christie attends the Cowboys playoff game against the Green Bay Packers in Wisconsin. He sits with Jones again but Christie’s office says that Christie paid for his own ticket and transportation this time.
January 15, 2015 – Christie says on NJ101.5 that he first spoke to Jones in the summer of 2013 and the two met a few months later in September when he attended the Cowboys vs. Giants game in Dallas.
