“It is heartbreaking to me that I wasn’t told the truth,” the New Jersey governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate told reporters at a 107-minute news conference in Trenton. “I’m a very loyal guy, and I expect loyalty in return, and lying to me is not an exhibition of loyalty.”

“I am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team. There is no doubt in my mind that the conduct they exhibited is completely unacceptable,” he added. “It showed a lack of respect for the appropriate role of government and the people that were trusted to serve.”

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Christie announced he had immediately fired Bridget Kelly, a deputy chief of staff in his office who sent an email that it was “time for traffic problems in Fort Lee” at a time when Christie’s campaign was seeking an endorsement from the Democratic mayor of the city. Christie said Kelly had failed to come forward to explain earlier when he challenged his staff say if they had knowledge of the lane closures.

“She was not given the opportunity to explain why she lied,” Christie said.

The governor also said he was essentially dismissing a close adviser, Bill Stepien, who had managed his campaign and who was on track to take over the New Jersey state Republican Party and to be an adviser to the Republican Governors Association, which Christie currently chairs. Stepien had also told Christie he knew nothing about the issue, but emails disclosed Wednesday showed him involved in communications mocking the citizens of Fort Lee over the traffic caused by the closures after it happened.

Later in the day, Christie traveled to Fort Lee to personally apologize to the mayor, Mark Sokolich. The mayor, who initially said Christie should stay away for now, met with the governor and told reporters afterward that he had accepted the apology.

( PHOTOS: Chris Christie’s career)

“Thank you for the apology. We are grateful for it,” Sokolich said.

Christie, whose brusque personality has earned him admirers as well as detractors among both Republicans and Democrats, described himself during his news conference earlier Thursday as being in the process of soul-searching, expressed frustration and said he was outraged that his staff hadn’t been honest with him.

But the governor, whose presidential prospects appeared to have dimmed significantly as a result of the scandal, brushed off criticisms of his personality. “I am not a bully,” he said.

Christie’s marathon news conference did little to clarify how the scandal transpired, and he allowed for the possibility that there will be more revelations because of the dishonesty of the aides involved. Since he hadn’t been aware of the initial problems, he said it’s possible there will be more information that emerges.

( WATCH: Latest video on Chris Christie bridge flap)

A spokeswoman for the office of the U.S. attorney for New Jersey confirmed Thursday that it was looking at the facts surrounding the lane closures to determine if a federal investigation was warranted. The matter was referred to the U.S. attorney by the inspector general for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that controls the bridge.

Two of three local access lanes from Fort Lee heading onto the busy George Washington Bridge were suddenly closed starting Sept. 9, a shutdown that lasted four days, causing massive traffic jams, delaying emergency vehicles and slowing down buses taking children to school.

Officials from Fort Lee said they couldn’t get answers as to why the lanes were closed, though in the days afterward Port Authority officials said it was part of a traffic study. Democrats soon began alleging that the shutdown was payback against Sokolich, a Democrat who had declined to join other members of his party in endorsing the Republican governor for reelection.

( FLASHBACK: Chris Christie answers questions about GW Bridge)

Christie held forth for nearly two hours, insisting time and again he was keeping no cards close to the vest.

“I have absolutely nothing to hide,” he told reporters. No, he didn’t plan to step down — a “crazy” question, he said. And he said he kept his distance from the dismissed aides so he wouldn’t be accused of witness tampering with people who will ultimately be called to testify in one of the investigations into the lane closures.

“If you lie when I ask you a question, you’re fired,” Christie said, explaining the Kelly situation. He insisted no one directed Kelly to send Wildstein the email in question about “traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

As time wore on, Christie appeared less tense, leaning over the podium in his characteristic style as opposed to the stiffer posture he’d assumed at the outset. He dismissed questions about whether he was too much of a political pugilist, insisting that was a caricature of him. So were claims that he and Wildstein were close friends, he said.

“I have had no contact with David Wildstein in a long time, a long time — well before the election,” he said. “I did not interact with David. …We didn’t have that kind of relationship.”

“You need to understand this. I am standing here resolved to do my job and do what I’m supposed to do,” he added. “But I am a very sad person today. That’s the emotion I feel. A person close to me betrayed me. … I probably will get angry at some point.”

Christie alternately took responsibility as the boss and directly faulted aides for causing him to present false information to reporters. He said his staff was invited directly, four weeks ago, to come forward if anyone had knowledge of the traffic mess that occurred in September and which was becoming a mushrooming scandal. He himself was not to blame, he insisted repeatedly.

“I also need to apologize to them for my failure as the governor of this state to understand the true nature of this problem sooner than I did,” Christie said, in tones that suggested he was among the victims of the fallout from the scandal.

He said that as far as he knew, his team hadn’t approached the mayor for an endorsement, so he didn’t know that there was something negative done to him.

“I never saw this as political retribution because I didn’t think he did anything to us,” he said.

“I had no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or its execution,” he said. “ And I am stunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here. Regardless of what the facts ultimately uncover, this was handled in a callous and indifferent way, and it is not the way this administration has conducted itself over the last four years and not the way it will conduct itself over the next four. “

He continued to insist there might still be a traffic study that was at play in the lane closures between Fort Lee and the George Washington Bridge, which spans from New Jersey to New York. Top Christie appointees had insisted the lane closures weren’t political retribution and were in fact part of a traffic study, an explanation the governor himself had supported a few weeks ago.

But that was prior to the revelation of the existence of communications between Kelly, Port Authority official David Wildstein — a childhood friend of Christie — and Stepien.

“The fact is I came out here and said something that was untrue,” Christie said. “Of course I’ve second-guessed myself [over this mess].”

Wildstein on Thursday asserted his right not to testify to a state assembly panel investigating the lane closures. Earlier in the day, he had unsuccessfully tried to persuade a judge to throw out the subpoena calling him before the panel.

Christie insisted, “Ultimately I am responsible for what happens under my watch, the good and the bad. When mistakes are made, I have to own up to them. “

But he added, “I was blindsided yesterday morning…. this is not the tone that I’ve set … over the last four years.”

Emily Schultheis contributed to this report.