0:48
“I don’t think Todd Christie will be a problem for his brother,” Shaftan said of 2016. “If anything, people might be attracted to [his defense of his brother]. I don’t think people vote for or against candidates because of their brother.”
Shaftan, who worked for Christie’s primary opponent Steven Lonegan in 2009, said it’s Christie the candidate who will have a problem and it has nothing to do with his brother.
“The candidate has no compelling reason to run for president,” he said, “The state is going downhill…If you are inclined to like Christie, you have Jeb Bush and Romney, where does (Christie) fit?”
A 2010 New York Times profile of Todd Christie noted he made more than $60 million when his stock specialist firm was bought by Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, in 2000. In 2003, he was implicated in a federal fraud investigation where his firm was under investigation of cheating customers to benefit the firm. He was not indicted and the company settled the case with Chris Christie saying during his 2009 campaign his brother had done “absolutely nothing wrong.”
But the Securities and Exchange settlement Todd Christie signed in 2008 “maintains that he carried out hundreds of trades that brought the firm thousands of dollars in profits at its customers’ expense, and had violated stock exchange rules,” according to the Times profile.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/ap_todd_christie_kb_150105_4x3t_384.jpg\")
The two brothers maintain a close relationship and he has been described over the years as an advisor to Christie, now 52. In the six years his brother was U.S. Attorney before he became governor, Christie was barred from political activity, but Todd Christie was accused of acting as his proxy, making political contributions and attending local political gatherings to ingratiate himself with donors and GOP leaders who would come in helpful during his gubernatorial run.
In response to critics who characterized Todd Christie’s political contributions as helping his brother become United States Attorney, Todd Christie told the New York Times in an interview for the same article there was no connection.
“I’d always been involved in politics, but since I’d had the good fortune to become successful, I had more to give,” he said.
Meanwhile, heading toward what is looking more and more like a presidential run, Todd Christie is “a little bit of both” an asset and a liability for his big brother, says Brigid Harrison, political science professor at Montclair State University.
“What we know about their relationship is that it is enormously intense and the governor has no more a loyal supporter than his brother and we also have seen time and time again Todd Christie has done many, many things to further his brother’s career,” Harrison said. “But, in other times he has generated comparisons to Billy Carter…the allegations of fraud during his career, all those characterizations lead one to understand like [siblings of] many other presidential candidates he may not particularly be an asset in terms of public opinion.”
As for his vigorous defense of his brother, Harrison says she thinks voters “understand and admire the kind of familial relationship where he will fight for his brother’s name and reputation.”
“In looking at the Facebook posts…it’s probably something Mary Pat Christie and the governor himself want to say, but of course they can’t,” she added.
Todd Christie returned an ABC News request for an interview but said all requests must go through the governor’s communications director, who declined to make Todd Christie and the governor available.
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