Chris Christie

TRENTON, N.J. — Investigations led by federal authorities and New Jersey legislators are continuing to delve into a traffic-blocking operation near a major bridge, even as Gov. Chris Christie’s own probe has concluded that he was not involved in the plot.

Politically connected New York lawyer Randy Mastro released a report exonerating Christie Thursday, 10 weeks after the Republican governor’s office commissioned his firm to conduct an internal review. The two other investigations are looming.

The U.S. attorney’s office launched a criminal investigation into the scheme, which created gridlock in Fort Lee, the town at the base of the George Washington Bridge, to retaliate against its Democratic mayor for an unknown transgression. A parallel investigation by a state legislative panel is trying to find out how high up Christie’s chain of command the order to shut traffic lanes went, and why. Federal investigators are also looking into an allegation that Christie cabinet members threatened to withhold Superstorm Sandy recovery funds from a flooded city if the mayor did not approve a favored redevelopment project.

Mastro’s taxpayer-funded report concluded “there is not a shred of evidence” the governor knew what aides Bridget Kelly in the governor’s office and David Wildstein at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that runs the bridge, were plotting. The report pins blame for the plot on Kelly and Wildstein and says a political motive is apparent. The report also concluded that allegations by Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer that Sandy aid was being held hostage to a redevelopment deal are “demonstrably false.”

Democrats immediately blasted the findings, with the party’s national committee calling the report “nothing more than an expensive sham.” New Jersey state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, co-chairwoman of the legislative committee investigating the same issues, said it “raises more questions than answers.” Zimmer called the report “sadly predictable” and a “one-sided whitewash.”

Though Mastro defended the validity of the report at the outset of an hourlong news conference, he was asked to explain how a lawyer commissioned by the governor could produce an unbiased report on the governor and his staff.

Mastro, who identified himself as a Democrat, also was quizzed about his ties to his ex-boss, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who has been one of Christie’s staunchest defenders on Sunday talk shows since the scandal broke in January. In addition, Democrats questioned the thoroughness of any review completed without cooperation from the key players involved.

“Governor Christie’s account of these events rings true. It’s corroborated by many witnesses, and he has conducted himself at every turn as someone who has nothing to hide,” the report found.

Christie went on the offensive after not holding a news conference since early January. He told ABC News on Thursday the episode has been the most trying of his political career, but he never considered resigning.