6'3" beast who's an incredible player and the first gay athlete. it's remarkable. i'm incredibly impressed by this man. mike paska from the npr and daily pod cast on "slate" covering the olympics and former nfl player esera tuaolo. thank you so much. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. good evening. thank you at home for joining us this hour. when you take amtrak on the northeast corridor, heading north, the way you know you have reached new jersey is when you see this sign. trenton makes, the world takes. it used to say the world takes, trenton makes. this version is fairly better. it's an old chamber of commerce slogan designed to market trenton, new jersey, as a manufacturing hub with international aspirations. but now when you see that sign, it mostly just means that you have successfully crossed the delaware river from pennsylvania, to trenton, new jersey's state capital.

the historic state capitol building in trenton is a hop, skip and a jump from that trenton makes bridge. it's also right there on the banks of the delaware river bordering pennsylvania. new jersey's state capitol is on the delaware river. not on the hudson river. it's on the other side of the state from new york city. and so you have to think about your options and think about the weather and think about, say, traffic if you want to get from some place like trenton, way down on the pennsylvania border, all the way over and up into manhattan. it's a ways. the office of the governor of new jersey, chris christie, told reporters today that in order to get to the commemorative events at ground zero this past september 11th, governor christie traveled to lower manhattan via jersey city. he went to jersey city and from there he took a ferry into lower manhattan. it was 96 degrees that day. so the breeze on the ferry

probably felt great on the way over, and, of course, helped avoid all that bridge and tunnel traffic into lower manhattan. well, when governor christie left the events on september 11, he did not return by the same route he used to get there. instead of taking the ferry back the way he came, governor christie's office says he flew back to trenton. he flew back to trenton by helicopter. so think about the geography here for a second. if the governor traveled the route that his office says he traveled, there's no legitimate reason why he should have been anywhere near the gridlock that day that was caused by the shutdown of access lanes on to the george washington bridge in ft. lee. look at the -- see how much further above ground zero ft. lee is? ft. lee is up there. trenton is down there. so there's no reason why you would go past ft. lee if you were going home to trenton. this past september 11th was day 3 of the manmade traffic disaster in ft. lee.

the manmade traffic disaster in ft. lee that appears to have been ordered up by governor christie's deputy chief of staff and carried out by david wildstein at the port authority. this is that day, september 11th, on the third day of the manmade traffic jam in ft. lee. they're there together at the commemorative events at ground zero. governor christie's office said today although the governor did fly back from ground zero that day by helicopter and spent part of the day with mr. wildstein as these photos show, david wildstein did not get on the helicopter, himself, did not accompany governor christie on the helicopter ride back to new jersey. governor's office said today david wildstein has never flown on a helicopter with governor chris christie. so, one, is it true? is it true that mr. wildstein did not take that helicopter ride with governor christie during the bridge lane shutdown after they spent the day together at the 9/11 event? number two, whether or not david wildstein was onboard with mr. christie during that helicopter

ride, was this the route back to trenton that the governor took? was this the as the crow flies logical route that as you can see steers well clear of ft. lee and the traffic gridlock that had been bestowed on that town on purpose as an unexplained political punishment? we do not yet know. when the newark "star-ledger" asked if the governor's helicopter flew over the george washington bridge on its way back from lower manhattan to trenton, the governor's office would not comment today, so we don't know. but we may be about to find out for sure, anyway, because the new jersey legislative committee investigating the bridge shutdown is tonight sending out 18 new subpoenas and among these 18 new subpoenas is one to the state police aviation unit which oversees governor chris christie's travel by helicopter. the "new york post," the newark "star-ledger" and "bergen

record" reported today in advance of the subpoenas tonight the records of governor christie's helicopter travel would be demanded by the legislature in conjunction with the investigation. we do not exactly know why, but obviously speculation about the governor potentially doing a fly-by inspection of the traffic gridlock in ft. lee while it was under way led today to some rather lurid headlines. and to some heated anticipation about who else would be subpoenaed tonight and why. in addition to this state police aviation unit, here's what we know about the new subpoenas going out tonight. we have the state police aviation unit, the new subpoenas to the governor's office. new subpoenas to the governor's re-election campaign as well. they were subpoenaed before. there are also four new people inside the governor's office receiving subpoenas for the first time. one is executive assistant to bridget anne kelly who sent the e-mail that said time for traffic problems in ft. lee.

bridget kelly's executive assistant has been subpoenaed. the director of constituent relations in the governor's office and also the governor's office director of operations has been subpoenaed. regina agea, director of the authorities unit, now the governor's chief of staff, she's been subpoenaed again. this time there's a subpoena for her senior counsel to the authorities unit. over at the port authority, there are a whole bunch of new subpoenas as well. bill baroni, now resigned from the port authority, he's been subpoenaed again as have not one, but two of his assistants from the port authority. david wildstein's special assistant has also been subpoenaed at the port authority tonight. as has the chief of staff to the port authority executive director. the executive director was, of course, the one from the new york side who called the bridge lane closures off when he found out about them and said they were illegal and outrageous. deputy director of media relations at the port authority has been subpoenaed, a man named steve coleman whose name you might have seen in media reports from the port authority.

assistant director at the part of the port authority that handles bridges has been subpoenaed. one of the port authority's commissioners, who senator loretta weinberg wrote to for help right after the bridge closure started. a commissioner named pat schuber has been subpoenaed tonight. the institution of the port authority, itself, in the form of its custodian of records for the agency being subpoenaed tonight. that's 17 new subpoenas being sent out tonight. the last one, number 18, is maybe how we will get to one of the biggest unanswered questions in this whole story and the one that's received the least press until now. and it's about this man, philip kwon, nominated by governor chris christie to serve on the new jersey state supreme court. his nomination for the new jersey state supreme court was rejected by the democratic-led senate in new jersey. governor christie excoriated the democrats in the senate for rejecting phil kwon's nomination but he installed him at the port authority as kind of a really nice consolation prize.

put him in a well-paid job as deputy general counsel of the port authority. the port authority has a bunch of people who work in the general counsel's office as deputy general counsels and assistant general counsels. they have a ton of lawyers at the port authority, but for whatever reason, it was this one, phil kwon who personally did the prep work for this testimony you see here. phil kwon is in the green tie. this is late november. this is bill baroni who since resigned from the port authority, testifying to the new jersey legislature as phil kwon looks on, testifying to the legislature at length about a supposed traffic study. the traffic study was the cover story that was cooked up to cover up what actually happened to those bridge lanes and this was bill baroni delivering that false cover story to the legislature in november and it was philip kwon who the "wall street journal" says spent part of four to five days preparing bill baroni to give that ultimately false testimony.

the port authority for their part contest that it was that many days of prep but they do not contest it was phil kwon who prepped bill baroni for the testimony which we now know to be false. why did phil kwon do that? why was it him specifically assigned to do it? and did he know it was false testimony that he was preparing bill baroni to give to the legislature? did he know it was a cover story? there's all this focus nationally on governor chris christie, what this means for his political future, how is he handling the crisis, is he going to run for president and should he step down as head of the republican governors association, and his poll numbers, whatever. right. fine. i understand that's the national interest here, right? but there really is no reason to put the cart before the horse in this story. what remains unexplained here is the really basic stuff. why did they shut down those bridge lanes and gridlock ft. lee? it wasn't a traffic study. that was a cover story. so, one, what was the real

reason they did it? two, who was in on it? and three, who was in on the cover-up? who knew that the traffic study story was false and pushed it anyway to try to cover up the real reason this happened? the busiest bridge in the world was used as a weapon to hurt one new jersey town on orders that appeared to have come from the governor's office. it's fun to talk about chris christie's poll numbers. what remains between here and there is the central question of who done it and why and who helped them try to get away with it? do we get closer to answering those questions with this new round of subpoenas tonight? in addition to the 18 new subpoenas sent out by the legislature tonight, the committee investigating the scandal also today voted on how to proceed with regard to the governor's fired deputy chief of staff, bridget kelly and his former campaign manager, both of whom have invoked their fifth amendment rights and have refused to hand over documents to the legislature and have asked that their subpoenas be revoked.

today the committee investigating the scandal for the legislature said, no, we will not revoke subpoenas. the committee passed motions today declaring the subpoenas were, quote, necessary, proper and relevant to the matter under investigation. declaring that mr. stepien and miss kelly's objections to the subpoenas were invalid. and compelling them to turn over those documents that were called for in the subpoenas. if bill stepien and bridget kelly do not comply, now that the legislature renewed their call for the documents and said the objections are not valid and must comply, if bridget kelly and bill stepien do not comply, it's likely they will be held in contempt and then they will get referred for prosecution. that's what happened when david wildstein invoked his fifth amendment rights to not testify to the legislature. mr. wildstein has been referred for prosecution on contempt charges. as his lawyer continues to seek immunity for him from those and other charges. he says he will sing like a bird if he gets immunity from everyone. but for chris christie's former

campaign manager and former deputy chief of staff, it is not just that they are refusing to testify, like david wildstein, they are refusing to even hand over documents. yes, david wildstein is refusing to talk, but he also handed over 908 pages of documentation to the committee. that's how anybody knew about bridget kelly's role in this whole thing in the first place. that's how we knew about the "time for some traffic problems in ft. lee" e-mail, it was in david wildstein's 900 pages of documents. he's been happy to turn over documents. he doesn't want to talk. bill stepien, bridget kelly, they don't want to hand over documents. we have the head of the legislative committee running this investigation, the head of the committee who issued the 18 subpoenas tonight. he's here live next on this show to answer questions. but it seems like there's two immediately outstanding new issues today. one is what's going to happen to bill stepien and bridget kelly if they continue to refuse to comply with the subpoenas?

what happens next with them? secondly, a more political matter that's maybe because it's political a little more sensitive. and that is this. for the first time today, this investigation into chris christie and his administration in new jersey, the bridge-gate investigation today for the very first time since it started started to break down along partisan lines. when the assembly voted to continue the investigation, it was a unanimous vote. all the republicans and all the democrats voted to continue the investigation. when the joint committee was formed to advance the investigation, the vote to advance the joint investigation was unanimous. every democrat and every republican in the new jersey legislature voted to continue the investigation. that's why when guys like rudy giuliani were saying this is a partisan witch hunt, it was hard to take seriously given every republican in the legislature voted for it. but when these votes happened today, essentially moving toward finding bridget kelly and bill stepien in contempt if they don't comply with the subpoenas, when it happened today, it was not unanimous. the vote was eight democrats voting yes and all the republicans on the panel not voting. all the republicans abstained and refused to vote.

>> with respect to these motions, understand a lot about it. only receive the motion as we were in the room and still have some questions. not quite sure. haven't had the opportunity to digest a lot of this, and so for the moment, i am abstaining on all six of the motions. >> realistically, in the limited timeframe we've had, a very complicated constitutional issues, i'm just not prepared at this point to make that determination, although i may at some point reach it, certainly not in the limited timeframe we've had to review this. again, a very, very complicated constitutional issue and fifth amendment privileges. quite frankly, it reads like a textbook and a very well-done brief, but for those reasons, i must abstain also on each of the six motions. >> assemblyman carroll? senator o'toole?

>> abstain. >> all the republicans on the new jersey investigative committee abstained from voting today. before today, every vote in the legislature on this matter in both houses of the legislature has been 100% bipartisan and 100% unanimous. if that is now breaking down along partisan lines, if the republicans are now balking at each new step in the investigation, what happens next? the head of the investigation is here next to tell us. stay with us. anybody have occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating? one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues with three types of good bacteria. i should probably take this. live the regular life. phillips'.

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second motion i move that the objections raised by bridget anne kelly in response to the committee's january 27th, 204 subpoena, and in response to the modifications to the subpoena of february 4th, 2014, have been considered by the committee and are hereby held to be invalid. >> invalid. the new jersey legislative committee investigating the bridge scandal in that state today held that governor chris christie's former deputy chief of staff bridget kelly, she of the "time for some traffic problems in ft. lee" e-mail, essentially cannot cite the fifth amendment in order to protect her from the subpoena that she has received that has

asked her to give documents over to that legislative investigating committee. given that those objections that she expressed have been ruled invalid today by the legislature, what happens if bridget anne kelly keeps resisting the subpoena? same argument holds for governor christie's former campaign manager. what happens if they keep saying no? joining us, new jersey assemblyman john wisniewski. he is co-chair of that committee in the legislature. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> what is the short answer to that long question, i guess? what happens if mr. stepien and miss kelly continue to say, no, they're not going to hand over documents? >> i think there's legal recourse our counsel will pursue. i think we're way ahead of that right now. right now what we're going to is say, we've considered your objections. we've taken time. we've gone through the analysis. our counsel has given us an opinion those objections don't stand and we expect compliance. let's see what happens when they get that message first. we'll take it step by step after that. clearly there's a difference.

there's a difference between forcing somebody to speak words that they have not ever spoken before in front of the committee and to provide documents that they previously sent to somebody by hitting a send button. other people that provided us documents, they've not interposed a subjection, so the committee considered those objections that they raised but we feel very comfortable in following the advice of counsel and moving the way we have. >> it was striking today to see all of the republicans on your committee abstain from voting on those motions. again, those motions were specific to bill stepien and bridget kelly and their fifth amendment claims. was that a surprise to you? should we see that as a new partisan divide opening up in what you're doing? >> i certainly hope not. this is a committee that's looking to get at the facts. why did bridget kelly choose on that august day to send the e-mail so early in the morning that resulted in the lanes

ultimately being closed? they're not democratic facts, not republican facts. they're just the facts. we want answers to questions. all the members of the committee were briefed. they got a full written brief on this issue last week. so, you know, to have the argument being made today that there wasn't ample time to consider, i don't get. my hope is this is an aberration that we can all work together and get to the truth because as i said, this just is really about answering questions and there are no partisan taints to the questions. it either is or it isn't. >> the other thing that the committee has done today, and this is reported in the "star-ledger," first i know the committee didn't put out the names of the people you issued new subpoenas to today. i have to ask if there was a partisan divide on the committee in terms of -- >> my understanding after we met in executive session, there was an agreement we would wait until all the members, all the individuals who were named in the new subpoenas had gotten service. we wanted them to find out by receiving service and not from tonight's newscast. and apparently that didn't

happen. but there wasn't any strong objections raised about any of the new subpoenas. and there weren't any strong objections raised about the last set of subpoenas. so as i said, this is really about getting answers to questions. really fundamental questions. how did this happen? who gave bridget kelly the authorization? what made her think she could do this? really simple questions that apparently are becoming a very complicated in answering. >> in terms of the list of subpoenas, again, reported tonight first by the "star-ledger," the state aviation -- the aviation authority within the state police which handles the governor's helicopter travel is a part of this investigation, a part of the potential data universe out there that i've never considered before. can you tell us why they received a subpoena? >> well, i think all of these subpoenas are offshoots of date that we already had that we continue to analyze and go there, so we sent out the subpoenas we did initially based on an initial review, but as you gather more data, other

questions become obvious that you need to get answers to, and so what this round of subpoenas simply represent is the next iteration of questions. and every time we uncover something, every time we get an answer to a question, we've got five more questions that need to be answered, so the subpoenas that came out today including the one to the aviation unit is really to get answers about who knew what when. who was in the conversations at what point in time? who else was with various people when those conversations were had? and sometimes you have to ask questions of a lot of people to get very few answers. so we're not going to just start ruling out asking questions before we know what the answers are. >> it was that particular subpoena today was described in the press as having been -- having sprung from a concern that perhaps the governor did a flyover over the george washington bridge during the bridge shutdown on the day of september 11th, 2013. do you want to comment on that speculation in the press?

>> i don't know what the governor did or didn't do in the helicopter, but i do think that who conversations are had with at particular points in time are just as important to the committee as where the helicopter flew. so this is part of a larger effort to piece together a puzzle that we're not seeing entirely clearly, but we do know there was an abuse of power in an attempt to cover it up. we need to know how far that goes and who else knew it. >> new jersey assemblyman john wisniewski. co-chair of the select committee investigating the bridge lane closures. i feel your path narrowing as you step forward here in terms how careful you are in answering these questions. >> i'm not sure it's narrowing all the time. sometimes i see it narrow. sometimes it gets wider. each day changes. >> one foot in front of the other. thank you, sir. appreciate it. i'll be right back. around here you don't make excuses. you make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up, and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability

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i have and will continue to, started yesterday, to once again now have personal one-on-one discussions myself with the

remaining members of my senior staff to determine if there's any other information that i do not know and need to know in order to take appropriate action. i'm going to continue this process. i couldn't get it all done yesterday. and so what steps we'll take after that, if there are concrete steps beyond what i've done today, then we'll certainly announce them and talk about them. if, you know, not, then i'll just say, listen, i think we've gotten to the bottom of this. >> that was new jersey governor chris christie last month announcing how he planned to get to the bottom of this whole embarrassing bridge scandal in his state. personal one-on-one discussions with remaining members of my senior staff. if there are concrete steps beyond what i've done today, we're certainly announce them. if not, i'll say, listen, i think we've gotten to the bottom of this. a week after governor christie described interviewing his staff, himself personally, his office announced actually they were hiring a big law firm to do a formal internal review.

"governor christie made clear last week that he will conduct an internal review to uncover the facts surrounding the lane closures at ft. lee." governor christie's press office today confirmed for us when they say governor christie made clear he would conduct that internal review, what they meant was his comments we just played for you here from the january press conference where he said he'd been talking to his staff one-on-one and would continue talking to them. that was governor christie clearing calling for an internal review. didn't much sound like it, but tonight, whatever else this internal review means, we do know now that it is not internal because tonight we can report exclusively that the lawyer hired by governor christie to do this internal review, that lawyer has contacted the attorney for the mayor of little ft. lee, new jersey, mayor mark sokolich. the mayor's attorney telling us

tonight it was mayor sokolich -- the mayor's telling us tonight that he received that communication from governor christie's lawyer. it was mayor sokolich's town, of course, that got turned into a parking lot for four days in september. governor christie's deputy chief of staff apparently ordered up traffic problems for ft. lee and a christie ally obliged by shutting down the town's access lanes to the george washington bridge. mayor sokolich pleaded for help from governor christie's office during the shutdown, asking what on earth he did to anger someone enough they'd endanger his town by intentionally creating traffic problems in ft. lee so much so that ambulances couldn't get through? in his search for why someone would want to do that to him and ft. lee, mayor sokolich suggested it was perhaps retaliation at him for not endorsing governor christie in his re-election campaign. governor christie denied that allegation from the mayor. but tonight the lawyer for mayor

sokolich tells us that the attorney that governor christie hired to conduct that internal investigation of his own office, that christie attorney has reached outside the governor's office to seek an interview with ft. lee's mayor. the attorney for mayor sokolich says the request came through this weekend. the mayor's attorney did not answer when we asked tonight about how he responded so far to the request from the christie lawyer. that's not all. we can also report tonight the christie attorney conducting this internal review has also written to the town of ft. lee. governor christie's lawyer filing an open records request today with the mayor's office in ft. lee requesting, quote, any and all correspondence going back to august 1st about those lane closures in september. they're also requesting any and all documents back to january 1st about access to those lanes including, quote, communications with the port authority. they're also requesting, quote, any and all documents having to do with the issue of endorsing governor chris christie for re-election or talking to members of his re-election campaign. the christie lawyers also requesting any and all documents that the mayor or members of his staff provided to "the new york times," the "wall street journal" or other local or national, print, internet or television media since september 1st. more than a week before the traffic jam, quote, regarding

any of the above subjects. governor christie's lawyer requests that production of responsive documents be made as soon as possible. signed very truly yours, randy m. mastro. new and fascinating news tonight in this new jersey story, specifically about what governor christie's office thinks is an internal review that suddenly does not look very internal. yesterday, sean boburg at "the bergen record" governor christie's lawyers wrote to dawn zimmer concerning that mayor's allegation that christie administration officials threatened to withhold aid money for sandy relief unless she supported a private development in hoboken. that project has ties to the man governor christie appointed to be chairman of the port authority. christie's lawyers asking for a documents from mayor zimmer, asking for an interview with her. look at the quote from the letter. the governor's office takes the allegations recently made by hoboken mayor zimmer very

seriously. for that reason, we assembled a team here that includes five former prosecutors and are conducting a thorough review of the facts pertinent to mayor zimmer's allegations. then they request, quote, complete unredacted documents from the mayor's office. signed, respectfully, randy m. mastro. this internal review of the governor's office which has now stretched into the office of the hoboken mayor appears to not be getting very far yet at least not in hoboken. mayor zimmer's attorney replying basically, thank you, also no thank you. the response, "we question whether it is appropriate for the governor's office in essence to be investigating itself, particularly when an investigation of the same subject matter is being conducted by the u.s. attorney's office. put another way, we fail to see the mandate from the governor's office to facilitate cooperation with the investigation when the mayor and city are already cooperating directly with that investigation." these letters from governor christie's lawyer to these mayors in ft. lee and hoboken makes for an unexpected development in a story that is already persistently just plain weird from lots of different

angles. this is a really strange part of the story. it's an unexpected turn in the strange part of the story. part of the reason this is strange is the way the governor's office is insisting he clearly in that press conference, that day back in january, called for an internal review. when he described himself as a sad, angry boss continuing to talk one-on-one with his employees. personally, himself. in order to get to the bottom of this. and yet in that same press conference, the governor said he had not asked his deputy chief of staff why she ordered up traffic problems in ft. lee. said he hadn't asked her about it and didn't plan to. after governor christie announced he hired a lawyer, much of the press was all about the governor bringing in top legal talent to respond to the bridge-gate scandal. the asbury park press headlined the governor's new attorney as a legal alligator who's reported to have wielded a bat for effect during meetings. well now we have from that same lawyer requests for interview the with two new jersey mayors who made allegations against

governor christie. in the case of the hoboken may your that includes mention of a team of five former prosecutors who are taking the hoboken mayor's allegations very seriously. how did the governor's internal investigation get from not even asking bridget kelly about why she did what she did, to now mayors around the state who have questioned governor christie getting the opportunity to have meetings with five former federal prosecutors at a time? this is a strange turn and a strange part of the story. where intimidation has been part of the alleged plot from the beginning, right? is intimidation also part of how this scandal resolves from here on out? watch this space. life could be hectic. as a working mom of two young boys angie's list saves me a lot of time.

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way over in the western part of north carolina, tucked right underneath tennessee is the lovely city of asheville. the 11th largest city in the state located roughly at the mouth of the french broad river and swannanoa river. along asheville's stretch of the river is a coal fired power plant, owned by duke energy headquartered in north carolina. the single largest electric power holding company in the country. early last year an environmental group in that area started looking into this site, specifically looking into the huge amounts of coal ash stored at that plant. the group was concerned the coal ash was contaminating the local groundwater. so in january of last year, they filed a notice of their intent to sue duke energy in federal court. under the federal clean water act you can do that. citizen groups can file lawsuits over environmental right violations, but there's a sort of stray thread, maybe, loose, loophole, maybe, something to worry about.

they have to give the state regulators, they have to give regulators in their state 60 days' notice in case the state wants to take action on its own before the citizens case can move forward. so this group filed a notice of their intent to sue duke energy. and then on the 58th day after the notice went out, the deadline was 60 days. on the 58th day, sure enough, north carolina's state environmental agency announced they were going to step in and take action themselves. the state essentially intervened and said to the citizens group, no, we are the state department for the environment. we have the right to step in here. we're stepping into your lawsuit and we're going to become the plaintiff here. state came in at the last minute and supplanted that citizen group's complaint. two months later the same environmental group sent another notice about possible coal ash contamination at a different duke energy plant. this one near charlotte. they filed another intent to sue over the conditions at that plant. another plant owned by duke energy. and on the 60th day, on the very last day before that lawsuit

could go forward, state regulators, again, stepped in and intervened. we have the right to step in here, we're the new plaintiffs here, you're off the case. this past june, the same environmental group sent another notice saying they intended to sue, again, over coal ash. allegedly contaminating a public fishing lake and local drinking water at a duke energy plant near wilmington, north carolina, and once again, just like before, state regulators stepped in on the very last day before the suit could go forward and said actually, you know what, we got this. we have the right to step in here. we're the new plaintiffs. you citizens group can no longer sue, we're taking over your case. after blocking those three potential lawsuits from that environmental group, in the past year, the state announced that their big action, the reason that they decided to step in, block this group from doing it, they were going to do it, was so they could settle. on their own, they decided to settle the matter by assessing a fine against duke energy of a

grand total of $99,000. for a company valued at nearly $50 billion. three times environmental groups tried to use the clean water act to see duke energy to force them to clean up their coal ash sites in north carolina and three times the state government has stepped in at the very last minute to stop the lawsuit. those details came to light in a rather jaw-dropping new report from the "associated press." the "ap reporting" in january 2013 the north carolina government started stepping in and blocking these environmental lawsuits against duke energy. that same month, january 2013, is when north carolina got a brand new republican governor. republican pat mccrory. who before he became governor spent 28 years working for duke energy. in the year since he has become governor, these environmental groups raised concern after concern about this one company and its coal ash problem and every time they've essentially been stymied by the new administration. and then their worst fears were realized.

last week, last sunday afternoon, up to 82,000 tons of coal ash mixed with 27 million gallons of contaminated water broke free from a 48-inch stormwater pipe that was located at the dan river power plant in eden, north carolina. that retired plant is owned by duke energy. the pipe that ruptured spewed thousands of tons of toxic sludge which contains lead and arsenic and mercury and a stew of other toxic chemicals. enough sludge flowed out of that pipe to fill up 73 olympic-sized swimming pools. the public was not told about the breach until the day after it happened. the initial reports by both the company responsible, duke energy, and the state regulatory agency, did not accurately relay the scale of the leak. this it turns out was the third largest coal ash spill the country has ever seen. the coal ash from this spill kept spewing into the dan river for almost a week until this saturday, this weekend when workers were finally able to

plug the pipe and stop the flow. governor pat mccrory's first public statement about this huge spill was not until four days after it happened and then finally he showed up at the spill site and pounded his chest and touted his record of being so tough on the energy. crowing that his administration was the first in north carolina history to take legal action against a company related to coal ash, right, by stepping in and blocking other lawsuits against the company and settling with the company for basically no money and no promise from duke energy to actually fix what they were doing wrong. this new reporting from the "associated press" about the state's role in blocking legal action against this industry, against this specific company, this new reporting raises questions about whether the sort of accident could have been prevented. one former regulator at the state's environmental agency amy adams, a nine-year veteran at the agency resigned in protest this past november over the direction the agency was taking since the new administration had been sworn in saying she was steered away from issuing violations or fines against

polluters once governor mccrory of duke energy took office. joining us now is amy adams, she's the former regional office supervisor for the division of water quality at the north carolina department of environment and natural resources. she's currently north carolina campaign coordinator for an environmental non-profit called appalachian voices. ms. adams, thank you very much for being with us tonight. >> thank you for having me, rachel. >> so we have just received news, just within the last few minutes, received news about the third of those environmental cases that the mccrory administration intervened in. the first two cases where they intervened they settled with duke energy for a total of $99,000 over the two cases. duke didn't have to change anything they were doing with regard to coal ash. the third one was pending. we've just heard tonight that they are going to delay their own settlement with duke energy in the wake of this huge new coal ash disaster in your state. what's your reaction to that? >> i think that is the most prudent action that i have seen denr take since the litigation

against these utilities has started. i think this is a progressive step forward that is typically unusual of denr. >> could this leak at the dan river plant have been prevented? was it -- was this the sort of thing that was foreseen, that people were worried about with those lawsuits they were filing? >> yes. this was absolutely 100% preventable, rachel. what we know is that these coal ash ponds, anytime they're storing toxic coal ash in an unlined hole in the ground adjacent to our surface waters, that there's a risk to the public. there's a risk to our drinking water, the public's right for swimmable, drinkable, fishable water to utilize for their recreation and for their personal benefit. and even though this spill is the outward sign, we saw the outward sign of the spill in kingston, tennessee in 2008, and this is the outward sign of a catastrophic failure here at the dan river, these plants, all 14 plants in north carolina are

under lawsuit for contaminating groundwater. and that's what the public doesn't see. is that this groundwater contamination goes on every single day and while this is new news to your viewers this is not new news to the folks that are advocates trying to address this coal ash pollution that the state is facing. >> you were involved on the regulatory side of this for nine years before you resigned last year, citing your changed work experience under the mccrory administration. can you tell us what changed, what had your job been like, what had the regulatory job been like in north carolina before governor mccrory, and how has it changed since him? >> certainly. before it has always been the mission of denr to protect the resources and the public and the public's right to have clean air, clean water, a swimmable, recreationable, fishable resources in the state.

when pat mccrory took office, the first thing he did was he appointed john skvarla, and john skvarla was instrumental in redefining who denr's customer was. the customer to me has always been north carolina's resources and its citizens. and he redefined that and said no, from here forward our customer is going to be the regulatory agent -- or the regulatory industry -- or the industries that we regulate. so we shifted away from protecting the resource and the people from pollution to protecting the polluter and trying to help them protect both their profit and help them meet compliance standards through proper -- excuse me. through -- >> through the way they had to manage their waste and other by-products of what they do. >> absolutely. i'm sorry. i lost you there for a second. >> i got you. i understand.

amy adams, thank you for being with us. i have a feeling this will not be the last time we talk about this matter. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you so much. in the nation... what's precious to you is precious to us. and from your family, to your belongings, to your dreams for retirement, nationwide is here to protect what you love most. we put members first, because we don't have shareholders. join the nation. ♪ nationwide is on your side to launch a startup from your garage. from computers, smartphones and 3d printers, to coffee, snacks, and drinks to fuel the big ideas. yes, staples has everything you need to launch a startup from your garage...

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best new thing in the world today. all right, this is a good one. this the university of missouri. the big letter, m, at the north end of the stadium is m for missouri and is made of painted rocks. the whole thing is 9,000 square feet. the rock m was built by the university ae 1927 freshman class using left over rockes from the construction of the original memorial stadium. now, as part of tradition, every year, incoming freshman gather at the stadium and repaint the rocks white. rock m is an iconic thing in college football. it's been there for more than 85 years. after a missouri player, you are allowed to take a rock home with you. they played in the sec's

championshipship. ranked number five in the nation and led by the player that voted mvp. he is defense of player in the year in the sec. genuine high ranking nfl prospect now that graduated. you and you probably heard his name today. his name is michael sam. mr. sam has come out to the world as gay after coming out to his teammates last year. and since he is such a good player and is undoubtedly heading to the nfl, this has led to lots of prognosticating as to what it's going to mean for the nfl and what it's going do mean for men's sports generally to have such a prominent openly gay professional athlete. today with the eyes of the sports world all focused on michael sam and his brilliant career at mizzou and his uncharted future because of this brave thing he just did, today this was the scene inside mizzou's football stadium. see what's going on there? at the snowy north end of the faurot field where the temperature did not reach 20 degrees today. today it wasn't just the rock m

anymore. it was the rock s-a-m for michael sam. we reached out to the mizzou athletic department to confirm the legitimacy of that picture. they confirm to us that that is the real deal. here's to mizzou fans and his tonight, chris christie's lawyers are now investigating don zimmer, the mayor of hoboken, whose accusations about the christie administration were first revealed by msnbc's steve kornacki on this network. steve will join me with his reaction to this new twist in the case. >> you've been served. >> a new round of subpoenas are expected today in the bridge scandal surrounding governor chris christie. >> as many as 12 subpoenas. >> somebody had asked if there are 12. i think it's more than that number. >> a lot of the people who were key aides and advisers to him are caught up in this. >> they're squeezing these people. >> how worried should the christie camp be? >> i think they're clear