Former National Security Agency secrets-leaker Edward Snowden called the much-criticized photo of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie sunbathing on a closed-to-the-public beach the epitome of "the politics of an era."
“Rarely does a photographer capture the politics of an era in one frame,” Snowden tweeted along with a front-page shot of Christie and his family soaking up the sun on a beach shuttered amid a state government shutdown.
The fugitive, who has asylum in Russia, also retweeted a post from the newspaper’s sports columnist that showed beachgoers crowded onto one end of a sandy shore.
NJ Advance Media published the aerial shots by photographer Andrew Mills of Christie and clan at New Jersey’s Island Beach State Park, the site of an official governor’s residence, the Huffington Post reported.
It and several others where shuttered after state lawmakers failed to pass a state budget.
Christie dismissed the flap.
“I really wonder about journalists who spend money flying planes to look whether people are actually where they said they would be," he told one local Fox affiliate, and replied to another Philadelphia station about people upset that they weren't allowed on the beach: “I’m sorry they’re not the governor. This is a residence.”
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