Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey held a news conference lasting nearly two hours on January 9 in Trenton. It’s premise? Apology.

The day before, emails among his staffers released to the public showed that they had conspired in August to shut down entrance lanes onto the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The closures, reported at the time to be the result of a traffic study, caused major traffic jams for days, which were meant to punish Mark Sokolich, the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee who had refused to endorse Governor Christie, a Republican, during his successful re-election campaign last year.

In December 2013, Christie publically refuted allegations of dishonesty surrounding the September lane closings when officials from the Port Authority, which runs George Washington Bridge, in New Jersey and New York testified that the closings had been clandestine and violated the authority’s protocols.

During his news conference, Christie denied any knowledge of his staffers’ plan to penalize the mayor. According to Kate Zernike and Marc Santora’s article in The New York Times, Christie said that in December he was “led to believe by folks around me that there was no basis [for the allegations].” Christie further fired Bridget Anne Kelly, his deputy chief of staff who had sent an email approving the bridge lane closures.

Christie, who is expected to seek the Republican nomination for President in 2016, expressed his regret at the situation and his apologies for having inadvertently misled the public about the scandal. Later that day he traveled to Fort Lee to apologize in person to Mayor Sokolich.

During his State of the State address on January 14, Christie acknowledged his administration’s recent mistakes, saying, as Marc Santora reports in his New York Times article, “…we let down the people we are entrusted to serve. I know our citizens deserve better. Much better.”