What we know about Christie’s biggest super PAC donors

 Matt Mowers, the New Hampshire director for the Chris Christie presidential campaign, takes a picture of the candidate with a supporter at an event in Manchester, NH, on Wednesday, June 29.(Matt Katz/WNYC)

Matt Mowers, the New Hampshire director for the Chris Christie presidential campaign, takes a picture of the candidate with a supporter at an event in Manchester, NH, on Wednesday, June 29.(Matt Katz/WNYC)

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This week, we learned about the $11million raised by America Leads, the super PAC supporting Christie.

We also found out who’s been forking over all that cash.

New Jersey Public Radio’s Matt Katz joins Host David Furst for a look at several donors with close business ties to the state.

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New Jersey has pay-to-play restrictions that are designed to prevent businesses from currying favors with the governor. But here’s the catch: they don’t apply to federal elections.

Matt Katz says, “You have the state of New Jersey, which is essentially a $30 billion annual business and you have companies that rely on a piece of that money for their very existence. They want to give money in order to get into the rooms with these political power players and they’re not allowed to do that if it’s a state-wide race. But here’s a way that they can do that.”

Also this week:

Christie calls it, “One of the best books I’ve read.” We speak with Ken Adelman, the author of a book the governor mentions every chance he gets – Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War.

Plus, The Star-Ledger’s Tom Moran joins us with a perspective on Christie’s foreign policy credentials.

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The Christie Tracker is a production of New Jersey Public Radio and WNYC and featured on NewsWorks every Wednesday.

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