SAYREVILLE, N.J. — Former Goldman Sachs banker Phil Murphy’s “Jon Corzine-style” campaign was the subject of a Star Ledger exposé highlighting his effort to buy the Democratic gubernatorial nomination by donating over $1 million county Democratic committees.

John Wisniewski’s campaign manager Robert Becker issued the following statement blasting Murphy’s “spineless” defense:

“Phil Murphy should drop his spineless defense and call this what it really is: An attempt to buy the nomination. When you give a county party chair $100,000 and the county chair then endorses you, it is very hard to tell us what it is not.

“Murphy needs to also drop his disingenuous ‘just-like-Howard-Dean defense’ when the record shows he was the architect of raising millions in Wall Street money during his tenure at the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

“When you brag to Fortune magazine that your first fundraising phone call was to fellow Goldman Sachs alum and Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, you are not running a grassroots operation. Bragging about raising money from hedge funds and the likes of Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs cronies says definitively you are putting the interests of Wall Street ahead of working class Americans.

“Phil Murphy’s best defense would be to just be honest — he’s trying to buy an election and he is a tool of Wall Street.”