>> he set them loose on illinois because they brought him the most money. whether the rules on political fundraising or flimsy guardrails the best you can still drive between the lines it's arrives tail is a cautionary wanna camera grabbing over the top example of how bribery, extortion and in graft easily sneak into our political system behind ambition and enormous egos and if politicians or the public feel the same way he does, then and another rod blagojevich is just around the corner i didn't break a law cross the line or take a penny. >> okay. but i never said i wasn't at very much. >> thank you very much awesome. >> yeah. thanks. you. >> enjoy. you're all right. i wish you the best we'll see how it ends up. who care through what did you get, throw me back in prison. no, but i mean, he can't hurt me

of anything that comes from new jersey. although i do acknowledge that the garden state punches way above its weight when it comes to political scandals. [indistinct conversations] in 2004, the democratic governor of new jersey, jim mcgreevey, stepped into a press room just like this and became an overnight sensation when he admitted to a gay affair and resigned in the same speech. a governor coming out of the closet was genuinely shocking, a career-killer at that time. looking back, though, i can't help but feel that we were also quick to embrace the headline that we may have forgotten to dig a little deeper, because the reason why jim mcgreevey resigned is a lot more complicated than we remember. ♪ ah, new jersey-- america's communal jacuzzi,

or cesspool, depending on who you ask. [glass shatters] a land with its own unique culture and customs and a political landscape than can be rather... shall we say, in your face. you're done. it's 4:30. you've maximized your tan.

jim was clearly the democratic front water and front runner gets you the county line. >> it gets you scares off your opponents. >> money front runner, it gets money enter real estate tycoon and democratic megadonor, charles kushner charlie kushner is the father of former white house adviser, jared kushner and a major new jersey real estate developer it became clear to charlie, people with the power to make things happen when democrats and that he himself could be a kingmaker charlie was like i get it done, guy. >> so that was an authentic connection that you had with him? either? yeah. i'll definitely without a doubt. >> and he helped support you. he raped me. it's expensive to run why didn't new jersey you it's like a $40 million raise

oh, yes. mcgreevey needed someone like kushner to bankroll. so krishna donated huge sum sums of in your back pocket. for someone like kushner, having a close relationship, who can grease all sorts of wheels such as contracts, zoning approvals, and tax abatements. bernstein: that is your ticket to power. so charlie kushner gave over half a million dollars to mcgreevey's campaign efforts.

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>> and this is cnn close captioning brought to you by in fait help call 1807, 10000. >> do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next. colin van helped today. they can help you get started with your idea called now 807 100020 months after 9-11. >> the most significant terrorist attack on the united states in modern memory hundreds. of new jerseyans and thousands of americans died in a single day and now jim mcgreevey is constituents. are demanding that public officials keep them safe city is now working out a detailed proposal, outline what they think would work mcgreevey lacked experience on the subject, so he needed to hire someone as a national security advisor. >> you also had a seat to fill on the new york, new jersey port authority board, which would decide what to do with

became intimate with golan surprised that jim mcgreevey didn't remember the date because according to his autobiography, it was one night when his wife was in the hospital recovering from the birth of their daughter so the timing of this is interesting you win election in november 2001 you and golan had your first actual moment. as lovers in december 2001 and then a few weeks after you're sworn in talking to reporters, you mentioned him? >> publicly yeah. in february 2002, at a meeting with the press defending new hires and homeland security mcgreevey said, we will not skimp on

security and he added that goal on sapelo was quote, a security advisor from the israeli defense force probably the best in the world, not probably they do the best in the world you still think he was qualified for that job for it wasn't harmed by the way, i carry one you know, the homeland security adviser was a counselor to you and in his portfolio, their homeland security adviser at 20 years in the fbi. but i mean, so there's something about being in israeli that does give somebody, but truly been in today. >> he had at orban in that portfolio of answer's no well, clearly and unequivocally, you brought them up, you brought him up in that meeting. >> you didn't bring up the fbi again? yep. you brought up go along yeah. >> i wasn't i wasn't with the fbi guy. >> did you want to be outed? did you want to be discovered yeah. it's probably a mix or components are factors as that decision-making not to purchase psychiatry without a license,

but that's some level i was doing something there he's a great sign. i've got to get a therapist. after having an interview with jake tapper. i don't know. i mean, like part of it was being in the closet or as they say in aa, were only a sick as or secrets. it was clearly not and it's too political act. i mean, it was the next day what happened all these reporters who is like, who is this guy? why is there an israeli on the new jersey payroll withdrew all legitimate questions people is a man mcgreevey brought to be his sixth figure security adviser a cloud of controversy alon did not have anything on his resume that would suggest a qualification for this job and then given the fact that he was israeli national here on a word visa, was not going to qualify for security clearance. >> remember, it's for months since 9-11 to this homeland security after the i biggest terrorist attack on us soil in

history, people are like yeah, it's crazy when we all didn't know was jim mcgreevey hired his boyfriend to a position his boyfriend was not qualified for. >> there was a lot of coverage while you were governor of what was called in new jersey, the pay to play? >> yep. >> give money to somebody and i'm running for office and then you can get on a lucrative board so charles kushner, you put him on the port authority board, says the golden crime diller graham. >> it's the economic engine you would argue for the region. >> and we'll don't necessarily understand this, but the port authority is new jersey and new york and it controls all sorts of decisions having to do with traveling to bridges. yeah. >> roads. now work ships coming in every development who gets those contracts? it's incredibly lucrative yes, i do have experience with development approvals business. this is the job that charlie krishna wants to be the head of

the port authority when the hole world is focused on this piece of property, jim mcgreevey is consistently denied that kushner lobbied him for the port authority position. >> but in 2002, journalists drawn masako reported a different store jim lied. jim trump didn't lie. well, who's looked at as a quid pro quo for kushner's political contributions. and i were story about how charlie kushner had lobbied hard for this job few days later, i got a call from one of mcgreevey's operatives, said, ron, i want to set the record straight. charlie kushner did not lobby for that charm. charlie kushner demanded that job. ron determining what's in a legal quid pro quo versus just shady politics can honestly be difficult but what's clear is that kushner bank rolled mcgreevey's campaign. people were right to be concerned about any potential conflict of interest and when the new jersey state senate summoned charles kushner to explain himself, he backed

out instead almost nobody noticed except for this guy after looking more closely at why kushner might have turned down the plum gag order what are to not have to testify. chris christie discovered that not only did kushner funnel as suspicious amount of money to mcgreevey's campaign. the way he had donated to certain campaign and it was illegal if you are corrupting our political system. this office will bring you to justice charlie kushner violated fundamental principles of political giving he would give money in the names of other people if you are jim mcgreevey and you want money, this is a very beneficial practice because it wasn't just the money that he could give, but the money that he could mobilize on someone's behalf that made him particularly attractive to people running for office he also secretly use partnership funds for political contributions and when his

siblings, including brother murray kushner found out that their money was being used to fund politicians without their consent. >> they started cooperating with chris christie if you choose to violate the law you will be caught you will be prosecuted charlie kushner gets wind of what's happening he thinks what is going on is my sister and my brother are conspiring against you and i need to shut them up. he decides to find a sex worker to proposition charlie kushner, his brother-in-law, and get it on videotape and decides that he's going to send the videotape to his sister that's right charles kushner tried to get his siblings to back out of testifying against him by blackmailing his brother-in-law his sister's husband with a sex tape featuring a sex worker that charlie kushner had hired only in new jersey and they now have a new charge, witness

intimidation every incredulous news report about the scandal included that in addition to being that kind of guy, charles kushner was also governor mcgreevey's biggest donor it was the kind of attention mcgreevey really wanted to avoid, especially considering the skeletons in his closet and the one on his payroll returns with three episodes. >> how would have in new episode starting sunday? remember 17th at nine on cnn was the biggest companies deliver is exceptional customer experience. what makes it possible it's unmatched connectivity in find solutions t-mobile forbidden t-mobile connects 100,000 delta airlines employees powers tractor supply stores nationwide with reliable hi jeep business, internet and helps red bull revolutionized coverage of live events this is

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streaming exclusively on max

of course, there's criminal campaign donations kept mcgreevey's name in the papers, and the governor realized he needed to clean up his act so he ended his sexual relationship with golan sub-l and terminated his contract. >> but it was too little too late in that world of new jersey politics. there were some chatter about that there was a relationship between chappelle and mcgreevey that this point we know jim mcgreevey gave go on sapelo job and enabled him to get a visa he was certainly on the radar of the house reporters and he will covering it nothing about the rumors of alcohol alon are provable. >> and principal, obviously, their relationship was strange and news immigrate his autobiography, he writes, quote after press questions about his qualifications reached critical mass golan had taken to calling me day and night to ask for his

job back the longer i stood listening to my former lover, the closer my world came to implode it you told him you would walk away from all of it to be with him? >> yep. >> what did he say? no no because he wanted to be with the governor right? >> yeah. that's what i believe he didn't want to be with jim, agree. yeah. yeah. mcgreevey kept helping sapelo with employment and other favors, perhaps trying to keep him quiet but? in. the spring of 2004, go on, sapelo threatened the governor that he would go public with claims he had been sexually assaulted by mcgreevey >> into the summer of 2000 for their winds up being an unbelievable tidal wave of scandal. that's crashing down on the mcgreevey administration. and in fact, it's hard to find the right metaphor. was it a circus? >> agree these top fundraiser under investigation for, among

other things violating campaign contribution laws, was it a carnival? >> mcgreevey was being undone by nasty rumors of soap opera proportions. >> was it a merry-go-round forecasters predicted that things would get worse for the governor. >> it was every single day thing to say going can you feel optimistic thank you he's running from reporters. he wouldn't come out for public events. >> you got to leave early. we thought perception of jim mcgreevey had transformed from picture perfect young governor to just another messy, corrupt new jersey politico as the tensions built. >> remember that loaded chekhov's gun of political ambition and closeted identity i mentioned earlier well, that gun was about to go off and that moment, mcgreevey arrived at a fork in the road and he had to in a sense, pick his scandals. what was going to bring him down charles kushner and corruption or the boyfriend he accused you of sexual assault?

>> yeah. >> and they wanted $50 but they would settle for five yeah. >> exactly. i remember my attorney. he says i've got good news and bad news. my eichar to use some good news already came down 95% bad news. he still wants five. i said, thank you. did you think that you are going to be able to weather the storm know continue with your career no, i didn't was sitting in the newsroom at wnyc's where i was working. >> and i get a call or when the afternoon testing testing 12 andrews are running into rooms i mean, there's flanks of cameras parents were there. dina was there hardest, the most honest tried every give it my lives obviously, i would have preferred to do it in a more low key subtle way

the televisions in the newsroom good afternoon. >> hundreds of people. >> it was so quiet here. pindrop and mcgreevey says the now famous line, my truth is that i am a gay american so he got there on that stage with his wife standing next to him, giving him what is the most amazing like four minutes aside, i that anyone's ever seen shamefully i engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man there was no way that that marriage was going to survive so i am decided the right course of action is to resign to facilitate sponsored will transition, you know, my parents were there, dina was there and i really appreciated that dina was mad yeah. >> and she had a right to be mad, furious. >> that she was mad because she felt humiliated. >> yeah. >> and she had a right to i was wrong. it's important not only recognize the damage for myself, but the damage to

people that i love. >> mcgreevey, a father of two said he had grappled with his identity for years let's forced into what he called an acceptable reality, the national conversation can't, we let the guy be gay? he's married, shore, but he was forced in the closet by an american puritanism. his country was selling making it very hard for gay people to live their lives honestly, still, there is a sense of something unsaid in this discussion. and mcgreevey's words hint at something more. >> it just seemed hard to believe and it seemed hard to believe that jim mcgreevey was going to resign in office, that he spent his whole life trying to get by falling on his sword for the gay thing, there was no longer a real reason to pursue investigations. he was on his way out anyway. so what's the point of taking into his association with charles kushner? that all kind of went away. >> thank you what would the american public with its puritanical streak and it's

obsessive interest in people's sex lives. >> rather, think about this mcgreevey made the right choice as to which scandal was going to bring him down at that moment >> i got news for you is coming to cnn this fall, frozen cons lists pro hosted by roy wood jr. row with amber ruffin. with michaelian black. >> right. so what are the cons we could run out a news by then >> in all seriousness, i, i desperately need this to work out i'm in the middle of a divorce, so i left it to the thereof. >> i got news for you next saturday at nine on cnn green next day on max i'm jordan, and these are my breasts. >> we've been through some big changes divorce a new city and a new grandson i, just as i was starting the next chapter metastatic breast cancer that's when i learned about

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that the news media treated mcgreevey's coming out like it was a big foot citing. but in retrospect, this was really the beginning of mainstream news the organizations covering gay issues as anything other than a political liability that was the year that that happened to you and it was also the year that it became a national issue. >> yeah. >> gay marriage was the wedge issue that president bush was using to win reelection. >> yeah, marriage is the most fundamental incident none of civilization and it should not be redefined by activist judges 2004 everybody was anti gay marriage. >> mcgreevey was anti gay marriage. brock obama was anti gay marriage. >> a man and a woman when they get married are performing something. and before god 2004, when degrees is moving up, it would have been impossible to support gay marriage and so i don't hold that against him necessarily. >> i am not apologize in but

his desire to be seen as a sympathetic tragic case that this at all well, hadn't been done to him as opposed to the choices he had made and things he had done to others maybe i'm just two catholic for that shut my truth is that i am a gay american and i am blow greedy said my truth is i'm a gay american and immediately framed everything that will come after the resignation in that line, it set the tone it was a spectacularly well conceded a pr strategy. apparently, mcgreevey, thanks. he left office as punishment for his homosexuality. this is nonsense if anything, his admission of sexual preference. one more support whole taken after the announcement gives the governor has highest job approval ratings in two years. >> he said he was living a double life all these years. >> you end up telling the truth about who you are to one of the fixers and his responses.

that's perfect. that'll really sell and i thought wrapping himself in the rainbow flag. he had no right to he'd known he was gay forever why was he telling us now? because he had to he try to make it seem like he was being forced out because he was gay when that wasn't the case at all? >> he was being forced out because he had put a lover on a stay payroll in a position of security just months after 911, he had been so reckless. >> so unbelievably stupid jim was forced to resign because he realized his position was untenable. >> i'm honestly torn on this on a personal level. i know american politics than in too many places in the u.s now makes it tough for lgbtq americans to be who they. are. but as a journalist, i also

know so much of what politicians do is calculated and contrived and spin. the speech mcgreevey gave on national television was spent just like his entire marriage had been spin. and he made his wife play an unwitting role in both moines. >> her first reaction up to, you know, half-hour before my husband went on television, what he was going to say. >> so i was really in a state of shock even though golan they'll never actually took mcgreevey to court the damage had been done and mcgreevey was out of office one could only imagine that he'd finished the week thinking the worst was over, but charlie kushner said, and i'm paraphrasing here hold my beer the spectacle of a political career derailed by a secret double life wasn't all that new jersey is resigning governor had to confront there

were some awkward stories for him and for new jersey herzi, this morning, jim mcgreevey resigns as governor and five days later, charlie kushner pleads guilty to campaign finance violation, tax fraud and i'm to entrap his brother-in-law to have sex with a sex worker to intimidate his sister it is a remarkable confluence as moments jersey governor really just can't seem to shake the scandal. >> his biggest campaign country tributary, she's in federal court, billionaire real estate magnate charles kushner one month after charges were brought against mr. kushner, he has pled guilty. >> charlie kushner, eventually plead guilty to 16 counts of tax fraud, witness tampering and lying about campaign donations. >> he sentenced to two years that was the end of charles kushner's influence over the new jersey governor. and with the engine of his political machine behind bars and the tabloids feasting on his private life you would think that jim mcgreevey was done for but this jersey boy wasn't

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prize for two, four to four why on sat just another 83 days. and then we're done. let's save her every moment of panic. >> i'm just five everyone this tuesday man is i mean, why are we shooting? what else do i need to know me, internalize are panic or everything. >> okay he's definitely amazing we must we will what a, mess this is sarah voting franchise streaming exclusively on max to ask god to create a me a clean heart three months after he announced that he is gay and resigning, mcgreevey we spoke of being a changed man. >> and so today, i still have a

dream thank you. >> i'll never forget the day after to resign before that has governor has 14,000 calls, texts, calls the phone goes dead you can hear the birds in politics, it's bombed. >> the day after. >> your irrelevant. >> but it was the beginning of god willing crossing the best beginning to rebuild the life that's authentic and an honest, so charles kushner, what happened with him and his family it was sad i mean, it's a friend and he's been there's been. nothing but supportive, very quietly. all i can do is reflect on myself, but your you're in a very different place in the second half of life was jim mcgreevey a politician who dove clear-eyed into the mock, who traded favors and influence with unsavory folks to make his

way to the top sure was his resignation. >> public relations masterclass and skirting responsibility for among other things putting a lover on payroll absolutely but i think at the end of the day, more than anything, jim mcgreevey was a guy who flat out wanted out of the persona he had created for him himself and this meant not only coming out of the closet, but out of the thunderdome of politics and ambition that had consumed him for decades. and by saying i am a gay american at that podium mcgreevey finally escaped two prisons of his own making at what would seem to be the lowest moment of your political and personal life it's like the moment that you become free. yeah it's is your break through the artifice and being

closeted is just a very toxic place. in the void that remained after mcgreevey's resignation, dina filed for divorce and jim mcgreevey without his wife began to quietly carve out a new life for himself on i'm very proud to be a gay american. thank you after mcgreevey resigned in 2015, the u.s. >> supreme court legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states. and mcgreevey, who had a decade prior, opposed gay marriage was now one of its leading advocates, being gay isn't an option. >> it isn't then matter. it isn't a discretion. it is who and what i am do you think if you had been born 20 years

later? oh, my life would've been so different we know just, you know, just you would have been out of the class. >> i would have been out of the closet, wouldn't have married carry you wouldn't exactly. i would have been in a healthy relationship if i could rewind the tape, if i was brutally courageous, i would've said this is who i am i happen to be a gay american and i'm not here because golan sapelo suing me on sexual harassment. i'm here because i know who i am. if i could go back in time. that's the speech i would have wanted to have made, but i didn't have the courage or the wherewithal to make that speech at an earlier point in time. so i made it when i when i had to make it jim mcgreevey probably would have been a even better governor if he was able to be himself it's terrible thing to out someone. >> the creaky really set in motion a set of circumstances that wound up outing mcgreevey, he added himself, but sometimes to be outed against your will,

is the best thing that ever happened to you in retrospect the moment before it's terrifying. the moment it happens, it's oddly freedom and liberating that downfall was actually a path to grace thing that i was most afraid of the thing that was most afraid of was like i embraced a place of total radical acceptance. >> ultimately, you have the rest of your life to live authentically and god-willing, virtuously, and to do good things. and every single day, i'm working with attics and working with people coming out of prison. i'm working with combat veterans. >> it's behind these prison walls it's where former new jersey governor jim mcgreevey has found a new calling counseling inmates and working with them to prepare for life outside of jail. >> i guess i just wonder, like did you want to show the world? >> but you had changed i believe in a god of second chances and can cross this threshold and get to a healthy place because i'm here with you arm-in-arm. i'm not i'm going aware. >> so the story has a happy

ending. this story has a great ending. yeah life has been a lesson in walking. >> the walk, he is a model example of a politician turning a political downfall fall into an opportunity for reinvention so it seems like mcgreevey has learned a lesson but have we, when he resigned, we focused on the gay affair, not the corruption allegations. and that obsession with sex scandals, with the private lives of our politicians over the public good or over the harm they can cause. that is still alive and kicking and when the next scandal arrives the heartache might