Can Chris Christie pretend he doesn’t know MOTIVE for extorting Fort Lee?

Commenting on televised politics is as meaningless as speculating about developments on reality TV. Since the Christie bridge debacle purports to effect which presidential candidate gets voted off the island, it might be worth at least delving where the talking heads are not. Of course Chris Christie’s office engineered plausible deniability for their boss with the bridge blocking scheme, but Christie would certainly know WHY pressure was being brought to bear on Fort Lee. Christie’s lack of curiosity on the matter betrays an untruth. If his mea-non-culpa had digressed to speculate about a motive, he would have exposed himself to being caught lying.
 
Was the Washington Bridge closure in retribution for the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, not giving his endorsement? Was it retribution for a Democratic senator obstructing the state legislature? Retribution does seem petty. I think there’s a stronger likelihood this was not retribution, but extortion, about a yet unmentioned political goal. Especially as Sokolich professes not to know why the governor’s office acted why it did. What would be the point of retaliating if your mark didn’t know why? A second clue is that now the mayor has accepted governor Christie’s apology, still without asking why. When Christie’s chief of staff emailed “It’s time” to disrupt the traffic in Fort Lee, it’s unlikely any of the players were in the dark about what that time was.