CNN is giving him a do over.

Via Mediaiate

Last week, as the revelations surrounding the closure of two lanes of the George Washington Bridge began to implicate advisors close to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, CNN.com previewed what some partisan observers thought would be a deathblow to Christie’s future political prospects. The governor, the allegation went, used federal Hurricane Sandy relief funds to promote himself during an election year in televised ads. Indeed, the governor was facing a federal investigation into the misuse of taxpayer funds for personal political gain.

There was just one problem with this story – it was not true. The ads in question were part of a campaign approved of by President Barack Obama’s administration and that “federal investigation” turned out to be a routine Department of Housing and Urban Development audit, a rarely issued HUD statement read. The “federal investigation” claim was merely an unsubstantiated charge made by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), a partisan Democrat who has flirted with running for statewide office for most of his political career.

Having been burned once, it is logical to expect CNN to abstain from elevating Pallone to undeserved prominence. That assumption has been shown to be unfounded.

Appearing on CNN’s New Day on Monday, Pallone took the scandal surrounding Christie to its ultimate conclusion. In spite of the fact that he lacks any evidence that the governor has been personally involved, or that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pursued a largely similar post-Sandy recovery strategy which was also approved by federal overseers, Pallone joined CNN once again to say that federal investigators should be looking into the charges against Christie.

“This is a whole issue of abuse of power and what I call a culture of corruption,” Pallone said after being introduced by anchor Chris Cuomo as a representative who is merely “calling for” a federal investigation into Christie’s use of Sandy relief funds.