This latest revelation simply cements his status as a class A hypocrit.

His wife was (is) an investment banker on the Street, and Christie, prior to US Attorney, was a partner in a firm.

So I suppose they could afford it.

Still… Lending money to other people too? What is this, Check-N-Go? Is he lending his own money, or is he a friendly face to lend other people’s money?

Christopher J. Christie, the Republican challenging Gov. Jon S. Corzine, failed to report income on his tax returns from a loan he gave to a top aide while he was New Jersey’s ranking federal prosecutor, Mr. Christie said on Tuesday.

Mr. Christie also failed to report the $46,000 loan as required under federal and state ethics rules.

The aide, Michele A. Brown, borrowed the money in 200 7 from Mr. Christie while he was United States attorney for New Jersey and she was his executive assistant and counsel, according to mortgage records in Morris County.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday afternoon in Cherry Hill, Mr. Christie apologized and said he was in the process of amending his state and federal financial disclosures, as well as his tax returns for 2007. He described the omission as an oversight. “When I make mistakes, I’m going to admit them,” he said.

Y’all need to remember that Pitcatinny is about 20 miles down the road from Morristown and even closer to Pompton Plains, the town where the Evans outfit’s office is listed (in the contract site) as being. In other words, it’s very local to all the players here – no one is more than 20 miles away. People who work at Pitcatinny are usually sorta well known in the local professional community, though no one really knows what exactly it is that they do.

Pitcatinny develops munitions for the Army.

In terms of the contract award, I would not be surprised if this was a drinkin’ buddy kind of thing going on. I say that for a couple reasons.

Now, on to the meat of the contract.

The Excalibur system is a GPS guided artillery shell, discussed in this article and this article.

It has been used already in Iraq, apparently since about 2006.

It appears intended to be used in a manner similar to the way they use Predator drones and Hellfire missiles – taking out designated targets with single shot, high accuracy high explosives from a distance, the difference being that it would be an Army cannon artillery piece delivering the warhead as opposed to the Air Force and a drone.

The contract says “Excalibur OBR” – clicking through to download it leads to seeing that “OBR” means “on board recorder”. Why they would need an on-board recorder for an artillery shell seems to be an odd item, other than it might be a sort of test-program thing, where they want to see how the shell tracks and compare it to theoretical. I dunno.

But, the thing is, a $15k or $20k contract is really pretty small for this kind of a program. I note for comparison’s sake this article, about a suspension of deliveries while the Army and a contractor fix a bad part. The cost of the repair: $16.3 million, or about $1600 per shell.

So, I have to wonder just what a $15k or $20k contract is good for in the context of a program this big. That’s one reason this could smell like a drinkin’ buddy thing. Another reason: this appears to be Evans’ only foray into the world of government/defense contracting. You don’t just wake up Tuesday and decide that you’re going to go into defense contracting. This takes a huge investment in time and effort into learning what it is that it takes to even get in the door.

But, it’s a lot easier to get in that door if someone’s holding it open for you, inviting you in, and showing you the way.

I don’t know if that’s the case, but it kinda smells that way.

Moreover, the next question is: “Where is Chris Christie getting all this money to make loans with?”

- We know he was a primo fundraiser for Bushie, IIRC, a Ranger.

- We know that the NJ bar (NJ’s bar is informal, more a community than anything) was not a little aghast when he was appointed as the USAtty b/c he was something like 35 when appointed and had no or next-to-no criminal experience, and it was clear he was appointed on the strength of his fundraising.

- And we know he was loaning out money.

How much do you want to bet he was not just loaning money, but also laundering money from national-level Republicans into needy politically-oriented people in NJ, in exchange for those debtors being converted into little wholly-owned Borg drones doing Rover’s will?

Because I’m betting that’s where this story is going to wind up.

So who’s to say the debts aren’t tied to leaving the company after which you all of a sudden have DPAs in the industry hte guy used to work in.

I don’t follow the implication.

One more detail: Christie says he and his wife have given other loans out (but not mortgages). Those also don’t appear on his disclosure forms. Sure sounds interesting to me.

Moved when Allen’s financial troubles arrived. Booted him off the marquee around the time of the move. Maybe they still kept him on as a consultant without putting him out front? Who knows.

Apparently the “Evans” part of the name was worth keeping, despite not having an Evans on the staff, either.

Not sure what this company does/did. Consulting, but also appears to be medical package manufacturing as well as a few Army contracts for munitions!

Evans Group appears to have disappeared sometime after 10/2006 (that is the last date of their archived website). If the place held out until mid-2007 that might be consistent with the story that Michele’s husband ‘lost his job’ and they therefore needed the mortgage loan.

I don’t want to lead you down a rabbit hole here, but there looks to be a little smoke here.