Chris Christie has until Sept. 4 to more fully answer questions from a House member about controversial court-monitoring contracts he awarded when he was New Jersey U.S. Attorney, PolitickerNJ.com reported this afternoon.

Steve Cohen (Gov)

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), chair of the House Judiciary commercial and administrative law subcommittee, submitted questions for the record for Christie to answer after the Republican nominee for New Jersey governor stalked out of a June panel hearing about the deals. Christie answered the queries, but the House member from Tennessee said the responses from the former U.S. Attorney were “particularly unsatisfactory.”

The subcommittee chair wrote in a letter to Christie:

Chris Christie (Gov)

“For all but two of your questions, you responded with a general assertion that the questions were answered in your oral and written testimony. At time you cited page numbers in the unofficial hearing transcript, which on further inspection appear not to contain anything responsive, and which in any event will be confusing to those who will have only the official published hearing record, of which your letter will be part. Finally, even for the two questions for which you provided answers, the answers are incomplete.”

Read Christie’s answers here.

The questions from Cohen focused on a no-bid contract worth up to $52 million that Christie awarded to a firm owned by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Former New Jersey U.S. Attorney Chris Christie will testify before the House Judiciary commercial and administrative law subcommittee next week, The Associated Press reported this afternoon.

Chris Christie (gov)

Christie, the Republican candidate in the New Jersey governor race, was asked last week to testify at a hearing next Thursday, June 25 about a court monitoring contract worth up to $52 million that his office awarded former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Read Christie’s letter to House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) accepting the invitation to testify here.

We previously reported that the subcommittee hearing was originally scheduled for May, but was delayed when the Christie campaign said it was intended to embarrass him before the June 2 Republican primary.  Christie defeated conservative challenger Steve Lonegan. He is leading in the polls against incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D) for the November general election. Democrats consider the lucrative contract Christie’s office gave to Ashcroft’s firm to be one of his biggest political liabilities.

Christie gave a preview to his upcoming testimony during an interview on the Philadelphia Fox affiliate this morning. He said:

“There weren’t any no-bid contracts. What people need to understand is there’s not a dime of taxpayer money spent to bring criminal corporations under control when I was a U.S. Attorney. Not a dime of taxpayer money. All of it paid for by the corporations who committed the crime themselves. I think that’s what people want. No taxpayer money spent, money spent by criminals who have broken the law in order to put things right.”