Earlier today, the mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus, two state assemblymen, five rabbis and dozens of others were brought in by the FBI as part of of two-year corruption probe. The story of what exactly went down is still unfolding, and we’re still getting to know the players. One of them, Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, who was in office for just a couple of weeks before being accused of taking $25,000 in bribes, helped us by laying out his political philosophy for an FBI informant who posed as a developer eager to get his projects expedited in exchange for cash this past spring.
Back in April, Cammarano met the faux-developer at Hoboken’s Malibu Diner, accompanied by his croney, local utilities commissioner Michael Schaffer, who assured the payee that when Cammarano was elected, he would be treated “like a friend.”
“When we get elected, we put our friends on the boards so we know we get the — don’t listen to these morons who say put this environmentalist on, they’re all fucking kooks,” Schaeffer said, according to the FBI complaint.
Cammarano elaborated: “Mr. Schaffer and I both see the world through the same lens, right?” he began.
In this election, hopefully, we, you know, we get to the point where I’m sworn in on July 1st, and we’re breaking down the world into three categories at that point. There’s the people who were with us, and that’s you guys. There’s the people who climbed aboard in the runoff. They can get in line … and there are the people who were against us the whole way. They get ground … they get ground into powder.”
Well. They’ll never be able to say he wasn’t loyal.
