Reuters reports that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie fired one of his top aides on Thursday following a recent scandal in which members of Christie's staff planned a traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge to get even with a local mayor who refused to endorse Christie's reelection bid. 

The scandal broke after emails were released to the public that showed that Christie's aides orchestrated a closure of all but one of the lanes of the bridge for four days in September. The George Washington Bridge connects New York City to Fort Lee, N.J., whose Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, did not to support Christie's reelection.

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," read one email from Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie's deputy chief of staff. The 23 pages of emails between Kelly and two members of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who have since resigned are filled with gloating over the distressed phone calls from Sokolich during the gridlock. 

"Is it wrong that I am smiling?" read one of the emails. The closures delayed school buses and emergency responders, one of which involved a 91-year-old woman who later died of cardiac arrest at the hospital. It has not been said whether her death was directly caused by the delays. 

Christie fired Kelly on Thursday and voiced his anger about the incident, saying he knew nothing about the lane closings before they occurred.

"What did I do wrong to make these folks think it was okay to lie?" Christie said. "What I want the people of New Jersey to know is that this is the exception, not the rule."

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman has opened a probe into the incident to see if any federal laws were violated. Christie is the head of the Republican Governors Association and is considered to be one of the Republican frontrunners for the 2016 presidential election, though Christie said in his news conference that he was "nowhere near" considering a presidential bid. 

The scandal provides fuel for Christie's critics, who attack him for his blunt belittling of political challengers and label him a bully.

"I am who I am," said Christie, "but I am not a bully."

Sokolich responded to the scandal with harsh words for the Christie administration on Wednesday. During an interview on MSNBC, Sokolich told Chris Hayes that David Wildstein, a Christie-appointed executive at the Port Authority, deserved an "ass-kicking" for calling him a "little Serbian" in one of the emails. Sokolich is Croatian.

As for Christie himself, Sokolich told Hayes that the governor should not reach out to him to apologize. 

“You need to reach out to the families who were waiting for ambulances taking three times longer to get there," he said. "You need to reach out the thousands of families that couldn’t get their kids to school.” 

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