Governor Murphy today pushed back against questions regarding what knowledge he may had of the Brennan allegation before the WSJ article was published in early October that documented her story and sexual assault allegations against Al Alvarez.  The Governor maintains the timeline of events, and has pledged cooperation in the ongoing investigations into the matter.

NJTV reports that the Governor at a press conference earlier today said “Not only do I maintain it, it is unequivocally the case. It is the truth.  I did not know the specifics of what had happened to Katie until, I believe, Oct. 2, so that is a fact. Secondly, when she reached out and mentioned that there was a matter that related to the campaign, it was a natural act for me to forward that to not only my counsel in the Governor’s Office, Matt Platkin, but also to John Berkon, who was campaign counsel. That was a fairly natural, easy, logical step for me to take. I will say that I only found out about exactly what happened to her, the awful tragedy to her, which obviously made me sick and continues to this day, and obviously we’ve put in place some investigations, some processes, to try and figure out what the heck happened”.

He also said ‘I’m not going to get into hypotheticals, but there’s some notion out there in some corners, which I just want to address head on, that we’re not cooperating, that is completely, 1,000 percent false. I’m not going to say to you all publicly what is not the case privately, and that is that we respect the process that the legislators have put in place. We have to call balls and strikes, and it must be solutions focused and not political. And as long as it is, count us in. Secondly, its got to be the whole of government approach, not just one piece of government. And thirdly, its got to be what we are passionate about, and that is survivor-centric. So as long as it’s solutions focused, whole of government, and as we are, survivor-centric, you should assume that they will have extraordinary cooperation, as they have had already and will continue to”.

“I have no reason to believe, based on my standing here today, that folks didn’t do anything other than to adhere to their legal, ethical obligations given the rules of the road as they’re written — things like maintaining confidence, things like that. I have no reason to believe otherwise. But I would say with equal force, number one we have an investigation which is unencumbered by any limitation, is to figure out what the heck happened, so I’m very much looking forward to that. And secondly, even if they did adhere to what were obligations — legal, ethical or otherwise — we have to question ourselves and change the parameters, which is why we not only have an investigation underway, but we are also reviewing from top to bottom the rules and procedures that inform those obligations”.

Read the NJTV report here.

The Bergen Record reported that, at the same press conference, Murphy said he was told to halt communications with Brennan: “No, certainly not an email, but I did have a conversation with someone, and I’m forgetting who that was, a generic, ‘Listen, Murph, we’ve reminded you before that you have lots of people who want to have a particular discussion with you, sit down with you or your wife, whatever it might be,'” the Governor said.