No matter the outcome of Bridget Anne Kelly’s U. S. Supreme Court appeal of her conviction for her role in the Bridgegate scandal, the indelible stain the episode left on New Jersey’s political and governmental fabric will remain for years to come.

Kelly’s career arc went from deputy chief of staff to Gov. Chris Christie to co-conspirator to designated patsy to convicted felon and she now stands on the verge of spending the next 13 months of her life in a Federal prison.

She was one of three persons charged with hatching and implementing what was arguably the most moronic plot in a state which has seen its share of them — realigning the access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee creating a massive five-day traffic jam to embarrass the town’s Democratic mayor for his refusal to endorse Christie’s re-election.

Of the other two charged, Bill Baroni, former deputy chief of staff at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is serving an 18-month prison sentence for his involvement, while David Wildstein, former director of   interstate capital projects at the Authority, avoided jail time by entering a plea arrangement with the U. S. Attorney’s Office in return for his testimony.

Following her recent re-sentencing in Federal court, Kelly — free on bail while her appeal is pending — laid into Christie, claiming that she informed him of the lane-realignment scheme and that it was a part of an Authority sanctioned traffic study.

During her trial in November of 2016, several witnesses testified to having conversations with Christie during which the issue was discussed.

Christie has denied he was aware of the lane re-alignment in advance or that he played any role in ordering or directing it — a denial accepted by some but disbelieved by many.

Christie was never charged, nor was his deputy chief of staff Bill Stepien, Kelly’s immediate superior in the governor’s office, who moved on to become political director in the Trump White House after he was fired by Christie.

Kelly is a deeply sympathetic figure — a single mother of four holding down a well-paid position in the governor’s office, caught up in a game of political hardball for which she was ill-equipped and — when the scheme unraveled publicly and threatened the Administration — she was maneuvered by those above her into the role of fall guy.

Her role as a co-conspirator should not be excused or overlooked, however, mitigated only by a naivete and a belief that she was but a peripheral figure who bore no responsibility for the scheme.

Christie didn’t escape unscathed — his job approval rating plunged into the mid-twenty per cent range and the scandal damaged whatever very long shot odds he had in the 2016 Republican presidential primary — but he’s since gone on to a television gig as a political strategist, ex-adviser to the president, and a memoirist.

He’s continued to insist he was cleared of any role in Bridgegate, although one finding of non-involvement came through a slapdash investigation conducted by an outside law firm retained by the Administration.  The firm’s conclusions were almost universally discredited as having been reached within a few hours of being hired.

When Paul Fishman, the U. S. Attorney at the time, was asked why Christie was not charged, he replied that his office only brings cases it is convinced will result in a guilty verdict.

It was something of a pregnant comment, filled with potential meaning.  Did it, for instance, mean that his office developed evidence that Christie was involved but felt it insufficient to sustain an indictment? Or, did it mean that charging a sitting governor with a Federal crime was simply too serious a step to take in such a politically-charged atmosphere?

As has been pointed out, a prosecutor declining to pursue criminal charges is not tantamount to clearing the individual under scrutiny.

It is likely that Christie will never be able to shake totally free from the suspicion that he knew of the Bridgegate political payback plot or, at the least, took no steps to block its implementation.

His critics argue that Christie created an environment in which punishing Administration enemies was not only encouraged, but celebrated, and that Bridgegate was an inevitable result of an arrogance and abuse of power at high government levels.

While Baroni serves his sentence and Kelly is in jeopardy of doing so, Stepien rebounded nicely, and, through his friendship with the president’s son-in-law, landed in the West Wing.

Wildstein was sentenced to three years’ probation, ordered to carry out 500 hours of community service, and was banned from public employment. He moved to Florida and launched a blog reporting on New Jersey politics, re-establishing himself as a source of news and gossipy items involving pols and issues.

As Kelly’s attorney Michael Critchley described it: “The boys of Bridgegate are doing well” while his client’s fate awaits a U. S. Supreme Court decision.

The final chapter in the nearly six-year-old Bridgegate saga is imminent, but its impact will consume years before it lessens and eventually fades.

It sullied everyone it touched and contributed to the erosion of trust in government that people expect and deserve.

As for Kelly’s MSNBC revelation that Walter Timpone sought to represent her, backed off, then later surfaced as an associate justice, I don’t think an independent commission is necessarily the way to go.  The Judiciary has an Office of Attorney Ethics which is very thorough, professional, and responds to complaints promptly.  Since Timpone was in private practice at the time, perhaps this office is the place to start.  There’s no question, his actions should be scrutinized.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public 
Policy at Stockton University.