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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is embroiled in the controversy over what appears to be political payback from his last gubernatorial campaign. Christie hasn't been tied to the scandal, but his aides and appointees have been accused of closing lanes on the George Washington Bridge to punish the Fort Lee mayor, who didn't endorse Christie.

Christie fired Bridget Anne Kelly, who had been his deputy chief of staff, when her e-mail ordering the lane closings emerged. In a news conference, Christie said he was "embarrassed and humiliated" by the "abject stupidity" of the move.

David Wildstein, who apparently carried out Kelly's orders, is under investigation by a state Assembly committee looking into the scandal. The committee charged Wildstein with contempt for failing to answer its questions. In December, Wildstein resigned from his top-level position with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates bridges and tunnels.

Mark Sokolich, the mayor of Fort Lee, called the lane closings a "venomous form of political retaliation." After a face-to-face meeting with Christie following his news conference, Sokolich said the governor was "gracious and apologetic" but said that "we're concerned there is more stuff and more issues to deal with."

New Jersey Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski is chairman of the Transportation Committee that is investigating the scandal. Wisniewski said Christie "has a lot of explaining to do."

Michael Drewniak, Christie's spokesman, told reporters early in the investigation: "The governor of the state of New Jersey does not involve himself in traffic studies," which is what Wildstein had said the lane closings were for.

Bill Baroni was executive deputy director of the Port Authority until he resigned amid the scandal in December. Christie said Baroni accepted responsibility for not following the right protocols in approving the traffic study, which was initially blamed by the administration for the lane closures.

David Samson, Port Authority chairman, said the Port Authority's board had no knowledge of the lane closings until they were lifted five days later. "I am extremely upset and distressed over today's disclosures," Samson, a Christie appointee, said in a statement after learning of the closings.

Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority, said the bridge lane closures didn't follow protocols. He ordered the lanes reopened.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democrat who also didn't endorse Christie, has raised his own suspicions about his cooled relationship with the administration and a suddenly tabled bill he was sponsoring in Trenton.

New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, a Democrat, has been pressing for information about the scandal. She has introduced a measure asking Congress to restructure the Port Authority to ensure transparency.

Democrat Barbara Buono is a New Jersey state senator who challenged Christie this past November and lost in a landslide. She derided Christie during the campaign as representing "the worst combination of bully and bossism," and she brought up the lane closures as an example.

Bill Stepien is a sharp-elbowed strategist who managed Christie's two gubernatorial campaigns. E-mails suggested he was aware of the bridge lane closures, and Christie has asked him to give up his political role.

Scott Rechler, vice chairman of the Port Authority's board of commissioners, e-mailed other representatives of the Port Authority saying he was disturbed that traffic was snarled "without regard to this being the Jewish high holiday weekend." Rechler was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Internal e-mails suggest Regina Egea, then a senior staffer and the governor's point person to the Port Authority and other agencies, was aware of concerns that the lane closures were not part of an ongoing traffic study. She's now Christie's incoming chief of staff.

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Editor's note: Sally Kohn is a progressive activist, columnist and television commentator. Follow her on Twitter: @sallykohn.

(CNN) -- It's time for Chris Christie to come clean.

At a dramatic press conference last week, the New Jersey governor tried to apologize and said he had no advance knowledge of the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge. But he came across mostly upset that his senior staff had lied to him instead of upset that the citizens of Fort Lee, New Jersey, suffered during days-long politically motivated gridlock.

Plus, no amount of talking would mute the lingering questions: Even if Christie hadn't ordered the lane closings (a significant and still-to-be verified if), why wasn't he at least digging into the truth of the story in October and November, when the press and state legislators certainly were? Saying he just didn't know just doesn't seem credible.

At worst, Christie seems like a bully who ordered or inspired his staff to punish political opponents. At best, Christie seems like a passive leader who doesn't have a handle on his top staff. Either way, Christie is taking a hit; as a new poll shows, Christie's approval rating among New Jersey voters has fallen from 65% to 59% in one month.

Moreover, the incident has taken a toll on his personal reputation. A year ago, 70% of New Jerseyans held a favorable personal impression of Christie. Today, that number is just 44%. And cementing the sense that Christie hasn't told the full story, 51% of New Jerseyans said they believe Christie hasn't been completely honest yet about what he knows about the bridge closings.

Adding to Christie's woes and image problems is news, first reported by CNN, that federal investigators are looking into whether the governor improperly used $25 million in Hurricane Sandy relief on a tourism marketing campaign that featured Christie and his family. The ads ran in the lead-up to the 2013 election, in which Christie successfully sought a second term.

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At the time, Democrats skewered the ads, as did some Republicans. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, like Christie considered a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, said in November, "That's a real problem and that's why when people who are trying to do good and trying to use taxpayers' money wisely, they're offended to see our money spent on political ads. That's just offensive." Of course, to New Jersey's hurricane victims, many of whom are still living in trailers and 75% of whom feel forgotten by the recovery, describing Christie using aid money as his personal slush fund as "offensive" is an understatement.

Meanwhile, just 15% of federal aid for Hurricane Sandy had actually been spent as of last fall. And that's just what we know now. Ironically for Christie, scandals are like gathering storms that tend to gain momentum and sweep up everything in their path.

In addition to previously reported stories about Chris Christie's bullying political persona, this week more New Jersey mayors came out of the woodwork to allege that the Christie administration retaliated against them for not endorsing his re-election. According to the Wall Street Journal, after declining to endorse Christie, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop found he was no longer able to get meetings with state commissioners to address key governance issues.

Fulop's name came up in the cache of e-mails recently released on the Fort Lee scandal. The day of the lane closings, when Christie's deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly e-mailed Port Authority appointee David Wildstein to ask if Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich's complaints had been responded to, Wildstein wrote back, "Radio silence. His name comes right after Mayor Fulop."

Mayor Dawn Zimmer of Hoboken said she has also suspected retribution from the Christie administration after she did not endorse the governor for re-election. Zimmer said she believes her city received less post-Sandy storm preparation funding because of her lack of endorsement.

Meanwhile, more e-mails and documents are coming out about the bridge scandal, implicating other members of Christie's senior staff and at least suggesting they knew about the alleged retribution scheme, or perhaps were more involved. That makes it even more far-fetched to imagine that Christie really only learned the truth a few days ago.

The media started sniffing around about political motivations for the bridge closures in mid-September. By mid-November, the State Assembly was convening hearings. By mid-December, Wildstein and Bill Baroni, Christie's top appointees at the Port Authority, had both resigned over the growing scandal. Why did Christie finally ask his staff for the facts around the lane closures a few weeks ago? Was Chris Christie stuck in traffic for three months? Did he willfully rip the rear view mirrors off and put on blinders?

NBC's Chuck Todd said that watching Christie try to defend himself was reminiscent of Bill Clinton's denying his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Indeed, the analogy is that Clinton was handicapped from the get-go by the common knowledge that he was a philandering cad, just as many New Jerseyans and voters across the country find it hard to believe that a governor known for being a political bully had absolutely nothing to do with the bridge scandal.

Chris Christie built his political career with a reputation for directness. But increasingly, it seems as though he has something to hide. And so the questions will keep mounting until Christie comes clean.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Sally Kohn.