Don't most of these political scandals often boil down to those simple questions?
With the WHEN component ... boiling down to a matter of historical "tense."
Take for instance, Christie's emphatic insistence of finding out about the Bridgegate Traffic scandal 'only after the fact' -- "after it was over" ...
Full transcript: N.J. Gov. Chris Christie’s Jan. 9 news conference on George Washington Bridge scandal
washingtonpost.com -- Jan 9, 2014
[...]
Q: Can you understand why people would have a hard time believing that you didn't know about this thing? Considering your management style and the closeness of your staff, if you didn't know about it, what does that say about your ability to lead?GOV. CHRISTIE: [...] kind of reputation out there of me being a micromanager. I'm not. [...]
Second, there's no way that anybody would think that I know about everything that's going on, not only in ever agency of government at all times, but also every independent authority that New Jersey either has on its own or by state -- both with New York, with Pennsylvania and with Delaware. So what I can tell you is if people find that hard to believe, I don't know what else to say except to tell them that I had no knowledge of this -- of the planning, the execution or anything about it -- and that I first found out about it after it was over.
And even then, what I was told was that it was a traffic study. And there was no evidence to the contrary until yesterday that was brought to my attention or anybody else's attention.
[...]
Take for instance number two, where the asserted historical evidence, places Chris Christie's knowledge of the Bridgegate Traffic scandal, squarely "during the period when the lanes were closed".
The existence of this "present tense" evidence, was communicated to the General Counsel of the NJ-NY Port Authority, by the lawyer of David Wildstein, and was also made public knowledge today.
Here's the letter from Wildstein's lawyer, Alan Zegas, and the relevant quote:
[...]
It has also come to light that a person within the Christie administration communicated the Christie administration's order that certain lanes on the George Washington Bridge were to be closed, and evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the Governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference he gave immediately before Mr. Wildstein was scheduled to appear before the Transportation Committee. Mr. Wildstein contests the accuracy of various statements that the Governor made about him and he can prove the inaccuracy of some.
[...]
But Christie has assured us, he knew nothing about who ordered the shutdown or why, until January 8th of 2014. Someone obviously has their "evidence-timelines" out of kilter.
I suspect, it's the "Micromanager -- Not!" ... with the disconnected recollection of these events.