but it's open for everyone. there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. there there are 435 members of the u. sft house of representatives. yeah, sure some of them have been there a long time and they're famous, but honestly there's more than 400 of them. most of them you couldn't pick out of a lineup. this guy you could pick up out of a lineup. you will remember this guy. >> congressman michael grim does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances. we wanted to get him on camera but he as you saw refused to talk about that. back to you. what? i wanted to ask you.

what? this is -- it's a valid question. if you ever do that to me again -- >> i'll break you in half. like a boy. i never understood the like a boy part, but that was congressman michael grimm, staten island, new york, ready to break that young reporter in half like a boy. whether the breaking like a boy was supposed to happen before or after the congressman threw him off the bleeping balcony, which he also threatened, that also is not that clear, but congressman grimm made those threats on camera and he noticed the camera. you saw him look at the big camera right in the middle of making those threats. congressman grimm made those threats in front of a big camera back in january on the night of president obama's 2014 state of the union address. at first congressman grimm

defended his behavior. basically said the reporter from new york had it coming then 12 hours later he apologized. congressman grimm after that kind of fell out of the headlines for a while, but then today late this afternoon news broke that congressman michael grimm republican of new york is about to be indicted on federal felony criminal charges. we have known for almost two years now that congressman grimm has been under federal criminal investigation for potentially illegal campaign donations in the 2010 race in which he first won his seat in congress, but even though that investigation has resulted in the arrest of two of his fundraisers, a guilty plea by one of them to visa fraud charges, even those two arrests have happened and that one guilty plea has already happened, it's not at all clear tonight that the campaign financial will he gagss that have been swirling around him for years are related to what

he's about to be indied on. a lawyer for mr. grimm said it is part of a politically driven vendetta. he said mr. grimm will continue to serve his constituents until he is vindicated. there's no chance he's going to resign. it doesn't feel that big of a i deal because he is a new york politicians and new york politicians are always getting indicted. usually that is new york politicians in albany, in the state capitol who are the ones getting indicted. michael fwrim is an actual member of congress, he works in washington. members of congress don't end up getting indicted and going to prison all that often. to be fair, actually, maybe that depends on the phrase all that often. former congressman jesse jackson jr. is in jail right now.

he bought himself awesome stuff like, for example, one of michael jackson's old fedora's. william jefferson also a democrat is serving 13 years $1 for accepting half a million in bribes. they found some of that money in the back of his freezer wrapped in aluminum foil. republican rick renzy of arizona, he got sentenced to three years in prison on corruption. he's out on appeal. he filed his campaign report. bob may got two years for conspiracy and false reports. ohio democrat, he had the most amazing hair in the last 100 years in congress. james traficant, seven years for fake the up tax returns, taking bribes and using his staffers for chores on his farms. he was the first member of congress sent to the big house in the 21st century.

really, he was only carrying on a very long and not proud family tradition. before the old great washington independent went out of business they left behind a list of criminal members of congress, god bless their defunct souls for doing it. you drop into the 19950s, you'v got ten. they couldn't keep out of jail, democrats, republicans, bribe takers, influence peddlers. the '80s were a mess. the 1970s were not that much better. meet george hansen convicted of 1975 of violating campaign finance laws. frank bresco convicted the year before for conspiring to receive bribes. if you're looking for people who went from capitol hill to the hoosegow, it is a take your pick. go past world war ii.

harry robot out of the list because he's got an amusing name. he was a congressman out of indiana accused of taking bribes in 1891 sentenced to a year and day. this is news of a pending indictment of congressman michael grimm but being indicted doesn't mean you're guilty or going to go to prison. a lot of members of congress have been indicted or pursued but ultimately convicted. tom dell lay, aka the hammer, he got convicted of money laundering but last year on appeal he got acquitted. joseph mcday, he stood trial for bribery and racket tearing. so is harold ford senior, tennessee. 18 counts of bank fraud, mail fraud. he was acquitted. being charged does not mean you did it, does not mean you will be convicted by any means.

congressman michael grim looks to be joining a long line of lawmakers who will be brought up on all kinds of charges and outcomes and it is not clear yet exactly what it is he is going to be indicted for. he first won his seat in congress in 2010. part of why he pulled that off is because he raised way more money than anyone expected. federal grand jury was convened to consider allegations that maybe he raised some of that money illegally. the fbi's public corruption unit interviewed several grimm campaign workers. they arrested a former grimm fund-raiser that she funneled some of that money. one of the things that federal investigations reportedly has been looking into is whether or not michael grimm or his campaign donors illegally got money for michael grimm's campaign from people who are not legally allowed to donate to a

campaign because they are not u.s. citizens, because they are foreign citizens. the news of his pending indictment comes with conflicting reports. originally they reported that mr. grimm would be brought up on alleged campaign violations with expected charges for mail and wire fraud. "the new york times" followed the politico reporting also explaining expected mail and wire fraud. the times say they have nothing to do with his financing. it has to do with a health food restaurant called healthalicious. this was before he ever ran for congress. nbc news tonight says the charges are connected to his private business dealings and not to campaign fundraising but even before michael grimm threatened to throw the reporter off the balcony earlier this year, he was his own particular brand of outstanding. another local reporter came forward after that to say he,

too, had been threatened by congressman grimm in december. the news brought back this account from the new yorker magazine about michael grimm's time as an fbi agent. according to that story a furious then fbi agent michael grimm told him, quote, i'll make him bleepg disappear where nobody will ever find him. he says mr. grimm left but later came back holding his gun. he said he was jumped at the club and he returned with police. he said, quote, i was 100% by the book and fully exonerated. a decade later he became the new york congressman from the staten island, that is the soon to be indicted congressman. joining us is evan ratliff. he's been joining mr. grimm's career for a long time. thanks for being here.

>> my pleasure. >> based on what you have learned covering congressman grimm, is indictment the expected next step or is this a mystery? >> no, i think the indictment has been expected to are a while now. people that i've talked to expect it to come down. the question is what charges are involved. is it related to campaign financing? the truth is since he's left the fbi and even since he's gone to congress he has been sort of adjacent to so many accusations that you almost don't know which ones will be in the indictment. >> one of the things that make him memorable is because of this volcanic temper, the stories and also the on camera evidence of it. is that aspect of his personality key to the sorts of things that he has been associated with during all of these different investigations

and other -- both journalistic and legal investigations? >> i would say a lot of the accusations are not strictly related to him having a serious temper which undoubtedly he does. that arose in my story, that arose with the other new york reporter and other people he's threatened. the idea that he was a bit untouchable is what crosses all of those. the idea that you could threaten a new york reporter -- >> on camera. >> and not get in trouble for it is the kind of thing connected to going into business with someone as he did in texas who was convicted in fraud. another texas fbi agent. it has violations for not carrying workmen's comp insurance. the connective tissue is when the accusations come out grimm or his lawyers say this is a democratic plot. this is people out to get me. i'll be vindicated in the end. so far he's been sort of like

the teflon congressman. he hasn't been indicted for anything. obviously now that's finally coming to a head. >> to that point his lawyer's response to this today is he will be vindicated, this is a plot, there's no chance he's going to resign and stay in congress. that's legal strategy in part. but he does have a pretty good record of having incredibly salacious accusations made against him and surviving and skating. is that because the allegations have proven to be spurious? why does he keep getting away? >> in all of the cases -- in most of the cases they haven't actually been brought to trial. there is a lawsuit against him related to the health food restaurant in new york and there have been accusations like, for instance, in my story the guy that was threatened in the nightclub who was an nypd officer, he told me later he had dropped the accusations because he was told it would be bad for his career to pursue them.

oftentimes they're either one person away from them as in the campaign financial will he gagss, doubt quite get to him or in other cases somehow it unravels before it gets to a true indictment. >> can i just ask you, too, obviously reporting on congressman grimm's career is about to get a lot more national attention once this indictment does come down. it's a pretty high profile thing that's happened to a sitting congressman. as someone who covered him is it scary or difficult to cover him versus someone else in politics. we've seen him threaten reporters in real time. is it something you're concerned about? >> i would say my experience covering him was not that it was frightening. when i did try to interview him in his congressional offices he did get angry and he did escort me out. he didn't physically threaten me in any way. i almost feel slighted that i didn't aggravate him enough but

he does project a certain can have terchs, let's say, a certain physical presence. he was in the marines and the fbi. that's what got him into office. the fact that he carries him that way and his history, that's part of his appeal to his constituents. the fact that that tips over into anger is -- that's where the problem arises. i never personally witnessed that myself. >> evan ratliff, contributing reporter with "the new yorker." thank you for spending your birthday here. >> you're welcome. we have a lot coming up tonight. if there were a mt. rushmore of political scandals, you would have to make space on mt. rushmore for something that has come up, newly important in tonight's news. that story is ahead. stay with us. getting a great ca2 highway miles per gallon makes it like two deals in one. getting a great ca2 salesperson #1: point is there's never been a better time to buy a jetta tdi clean diesel. avo: during the first ever volkswagen tdi clean diesel event, get a great deal on a jetta tdi. it gets 42 highway miles per gallon. and get a $1,000 fuel reward card.

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do you want to have a big, fancy wedding in denver, colorado? one of the options is the grant humphries mansion. pretty, right? in the national historic places, you can plan your wedding there, get the history of the mansion at history.colorado -- historycolorado.org. or if you don't want to go to historycolorado.org, you can go to hauntedhouses.com. the grant humphries mansion on capitol hill in denver is considered a haunted house. it was built in 1902 by the grant in grant humphries. the guy who died there, which is

why everybody think it's haunted, is albert humphries. a rich oil man. in the 1920s, a.e. humphries made the oil deal of a lifetime. he sold more than 300 million barrels of oil to a company that didn't really exist. and by using that fake company and this huge oil deal, he started the ball rolling on what was and remains one of the greatest american political scandals of all time those 300 million barrels of oil, he sold them to a whole bunch of oil executives, executives of other oil companies, for $1.50 a barrel. those oil executives then turned around and sold the same oil to their respective companies at $1.75 a barrel. and they kept the difference. they needed the fake companies, the middleman in order to disguise that they were keeping the markup. and that markup was a huge deal. in the 1920s, that deal produced an $8.3 million slush fund for these guys. and what did they do with their huge slush fund?

they paid off the campaign debt of president warren g. harding. yeah. you know how people say warren harding was a terrible president? this is part of why warren g. harding was so terrible. in the early 1900s, the u.s. navy started to switch over from having its ships powered by coal to having its ships powered by oil. and the navy made a decision at that time that they would, therefore, buy up a bunch of oil field around the united states in order to make sure that u.s. navy ships always had a secure supply of oil. so if there was some emergency with will oil supply affecting the rest of the world or some supply shortage for some reason, at least the navy would be able to get oil to its own ships because they had their own oil. they had six sites around the united states that they considered to be naval petroleum reserves. over time, though, it just became too tempting, right. the government couldn't bear to just be sitting on all of that oil without making any money off of it. so they started leasing out these oil fields. and in 1915, they transferred

one of these oil fields from the navy to the department of the interior. so the interior department could lease that field out. lease it out to oil companies and finally start making money off of that property. the terrible interior secretary for terrible president warren g. harding, he got responsibility for giving out those leases to oil companies to pump the oil off of that oil field. and he gave them out as no-bid contracts, and he gave them out super cheap, super sweet deals to these oil companies. and it turns out, surprise, he had taken huge bribes from those oil companies in order to give them those sweet deals. the oil men had paid off the campaign debt for president harding. they had bribed his interior secretary to get those oil leases. they had bribed newspaper publishers to not cover the scandal when reporters and editors started realizing what was going on. nevertheless, the big bribery story you got out. this is the "wall street journal" breaking the story on

good friday, 1922. and that led congress to start an investigation into what was going on there. when humphries, the guy with the big manages in denver, when he found out he was going to have to testify to congress, to the congressional committee investigating the scandal, he killed himself in the mansion. hence the mansion being haunted. the head of sinclair oil did testify to congress. he ended up going to prison in the scandal. the head of one of the other oil companies that was implicated in the same scandal, his son ended up dead less than a year later in a mysterious murder/suicide that's still never totally been explained. warren g. harding's interior secretary, albert fall, the guy who took the bribes to get the cheap oil leases, he got convicted of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. would have been millions in bribes in today's money. one of the lasting historical impacts of the scandal is that albert fall, interior secretary, became the first former u.s. cabinet official to get sentenced to prison for something he did while he was in office. even before fall went to prison,

less than a year and a half after the "wall street journal" break the story, president harding himself dropped dead on a trip to california that people thought he had taken to distract from the ongoing scandal in washington. so warren g. harding never even served a full term as president. but he is considered to be one of the worst presidents in american history. and we've had a lot of bad presidents. the supreme court ruling that came out of the scandal is the one that established that when congressional committees are investigating something, they can compel people to testify. that was never clear in the law before this scandal. but the supreme court had to say it was. this scandal was hugely consequential. it destroyed presidency. it established hugely important political precedents that still stand. people ended up dead and in prison and haunting spooky mansions. all the way up to some of the most powerful politicians and some of the richest businessmen in the country. i mean, there have been a lot of scandals in american political history. before watergate, this is

considered to have been the greatest and most salacious american political scandal of all time. and it all started here. this is the naval petroleum reserve that they decided to lease out to those private companies where they took all the bribes and all the rest. it started the whole scandal. the rock formation on top of the oil reserve is what gave both the site in wyoming and the scandal its name. it's called the teapot dome. sadly, in 1962, a big windstorm blew the spout off the teapot, off what had been the teapot. doesn't look like a teapot dome anymore, looks like a little castle or lump or something. but after the scandal happened in the 1920s, this huge scandal, the navy, not surprisingly, decided that when they transferred their rights to that oil field into this den of thieves, right, when they gave it to the interior department and then it turned into this huge bribery-laden scandal, the navy decided that had actually been a fraudulent transaction. after the whole scandal blew open, the navy took back the teapot oil field in wyoming. they said, never mind, warren g.

harding, never mind, interior department, never mind, oil companies, we're taking this back. it's ours once again. and they have held on to it ever since. ever since this terrible scandal. over the years, all the other oil fields, all the other naval petroleum reserves that we got back in the 1900s or 19-teens, all the others got leased to private industry or sold off to private industry. you could understand they were a little sensitive to not do that with the teapot dome. it's the only one of those petroleum reserves they held on to. first of all, because the first time they tried to sell it off it created the greatest u.s. scandal until watergate. but the other reason they held on to that one location and didn't sell it off even when they sold off all the other ones -- because as an oil field, the teapot dome kind of sucks. they've pumped about 30 million barrels of oil out of there over time. they think there's about ten

times that much oil still there, but it is the kind of oil that's really hard and expensive to get out of the ground. and on those grounds, on those economic grounds, the government decide good a decade ago that finally they were going to sell this thing off. and now this week, that plan has finally gone into motion. the government has hired a denver-based energy consulting firm to arrange the sale of the teapot dome oil field to the highest bidder. really this time. they're being very up-front. they say it's going to be a competitive process with sealed bids. we're going to do this properly this time. hopefully this time nobody will die or go to jail or end up haunting anything. part of the reason the deal is going to go through now is because i think the teapot dome scandal is so long ago that even if you heard the name, nobody remembers that it was about oil, right. nobody really remembers that it was about a specific oil field that the government owned. honestly, the teapot dome scandal was so long ago that the teapot dome thing doesn't even look like a teapot anymore. but the other reason this deal is going through now -- the other reason this deal is potentially economically significant now is because what

used to be considered inaccessible oil, oil that was too expensive to drill, too technologically infeasible to get out of the ground with any hope of making a profit, oil like that is now considered to be fair game. nobody knows exactly how the oil industry is going to get those 300 million barrels out of the teapot dome. those 300 million barrels that previously nobody's been able to get at. but nobody has any doubt that the oil industry will figure out a way because now, unlike we used to, now we drill absolutely everywhere. and it turn out that has really big political consequences, and that other part of the story is next. ngs] this...is jane. her long day on set starts with shoulder pain... ...and a choice take 6 tylenol in a day which is 2 aleve for... ...all day relief. hmm. [bell ring] "roll sound!" "action!"

on new year's day last year, january 1st, 2013, this was the sight that residents in the great state of alaska woke up to that day. huh, happy new year. enjoy that giant drilling rig that has just crashed into your shore. that was a shell oil drilling rig called the kulik which had been drilling alaska's arctic ocean before it capsized off the alaskan coast. that incident on new year's day of sort of a fitting end to what was a truly disastrous year for shell oil in the arctic. they started off by predicting that drilling in the arctic was going to be "relatively easy" for them. but shell spent 2012 crashing the drilling rig into that alaskan island. they nearly ran another rig aground in alaska's aleutian islands. they suffered a catastrophic fire in that rig's engine room.

they had new equipment designed to respond to an oil spill there, but totally screwed up white while testing it, and it ended up "crushed like a beer can." also a rig was held on potential criminal violations. shell sent two drilling rigs to the arctic in 2012. both wound up under federal criminal investigation. after all that, as you might expect, shell announced that they were pulling out of the arctic. yeah, you think? after a year like that. shell's experience in the arctic was a big deal because they were the first oil company that was given permission to start drilling up there. and they totally blew it. i mean, for decades oil companies had begged for access to drill the arctic. now they were finally getting their chance, and -- shell just totally blew it. they failed after they failed after they failed and failed again. and -- and while nobody is happy when drilling rigs crash, it turns out that shell's disastrous misadventures in the arctic may have been sort of a blessing in disguise because

this week, two years after the u.s. government gave shell the go ahead to start the process of drilling the arctic, we have just learned that we as a country have absolutely no idea what to do if something up there goes wrong. this week, a report that was commissioned by the u.s. government and the oil industry concluded that even though technically we have decided to move forward with drilling in the arctic, even though the oil industry has gotten its wish to be cleared politically to go drill up there, "it is unlikely that responders could quickly react to an arctic oil spill." we sort of have known that the oil companies themselves don't have the best oil spill response capabilities. but now we know that neither do we as a country. "the report finds that current personnel, equipment, transportation, communication, navigation, and safety resources for overseeing a spill response in the arctic are not adequate." this is not like a greenpeace report or something. this is the leading experts in government and the oil industry

itself and oceanography and disaster response. all saying we are not ready to drill the arctic. we have no way of dealing with it if anything goes wrong. this is the amazing part -- because the policy decision that we should drill in the arctic has already been made, this report recommends that what we ought to do now to essentially retroactively get ready for something that's already been approved, what we ought to do now is cause an oil spill in the arctic on purpose. so we can figure out how to try to respond on the fly. we are horrendous at cleaning up and containing oil spills when they happen in the gulf of mexico. right, the bp oil spill that happened this week four years ago, that confirmed how bad we are at cleaning it up. but we at least have lots of experience in dealing with oil spills in relatively warm water like that. we have practically no idea how spilled oil will react in cold water environments like the arctic or what happens when oil interacts with things like arctic sea ice. and so in order to figure it

out, the report calls for planned and controlled field releases of oil in the arctic to help us understand how oil will behave in that environment. what could possibly go wrong? we are drilling places in this country that we never used to drill before. oil that used to be considered too hard to get, we now think we are totally capable of going to get it. we are now at least willing to go get it. from the scandal-famous teapot dome in wyoming to a mile under the sea off louisiana to right through the ice in the arctic ocean, we'll go anywhere there is oil now, even though we don't know what to do once we're there. the official word from the experts as of this week is that even though oil drilling in the arctic has been approved politically, technologically we don't know how to clean up oil spills up there if and when they happen. the plan to deal with that, as of now, is to cause some intentional oil spills in the arctic just to see how it goes. that's the plan. that's how we're handling this

as a nation, seriously. joining us, elizabeth birnbaum, director of the u.s. minerals management service at the time of the deep water oil disaster. i appreciate your time. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> have we gotten any better at cleaning up oil spills, particularly after the deepwater horizon disaster? have we had any technological breakthroughs in cleanup? >> there haven't been any technological breakthroughs, and really the technology for cleaning up oil spills hasn't improved much over decades. when we were cleaning up the bp spill, we were using much of the same technology that was used in 1969 to clean up the santa barbara blowout. it only removed a small percentage of the oil from the ocean. when you talk about the arctic, it's much more complicated to clean up because you're dealing with an environment where there is ice in the water much of the year. there's only a small period in the summer when they have clear water. and that makes cleanup much more difficult, and nobody knows how

to do that. >> there was -- raising the issue of the santa barbara spill, for example, that was such a remarkable comparison to see the similar techniques. because the santa barbara spill happened in such shallow water. obviously we had taught ourselves how to drill in such deep water for the deepwater horizon without ever upgrading our response capabilities in case anything went wrong. my surprise talking to you about this four years later is that that didn't goose something either in the regulatory environment or in the industry itself that they would have to start proving better response technologies in order to be allowed to keep pushing the extremes of where they drill. >> we've been investing a little bit more money into oil spill cleanup technology since then. there haven't been any major breakthroughs, and we need to invest a lot more if we want to find breakthrough technologies for that. the booms are a little better at holding illinois than they maybe were for santa barbara. but maybe we've got slightly more absorbent materials. but basically, it's mostly the same technology.

and again, if you do that in an environment where half of the sea is covered with ice, nobody quite knows how any of those technologies work in that environment. >> looking at shell's experience in 2012 and early 2013 of trying -- trying to set up drilling practices in the arctic, they -- as far as i could tell -- were considered to be the best at the industry for trying to do something like that. my -- when i look at their record just as a layman, i see a sort of comedy of errors or at least comedy of unfortunate incidents for shell where things kept going wrong after wrong after wrong after wrong. and they weren't dealing with spills. should we see the industry as being able to offer -- operate safely in an arctic environment even if they're not spilling? >> i was stunned, i have to say, when they ran aground. this was a situation where shell had invested over $1 billion in ships, equipment, the permitting process, but had truly invested

to make this a model drilling operation in the arctic. they were going to prove it could be done and prove that it could be done safely. and then they ran aground. i -- it was just unbelievable. i haven't read the reports on it, i understand maybe they were pushing to get out of alaska waters to avoid some fees or something. but it really does make you wonder whether they can even operate. >> elizabeth birnbaum, former director of the u.s. minerals management service. we cover the energy industry a lot on this show in part because i'm always standing up at my desk and slapping myself in the face trying to believe the news that's coming out of this industry. it's a real asset for us to be able to call on you to help us understand it. thank you for being here tonight. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thanks. we'll be right back. lots to come. when it comes to good nutrition...i'm no expert.

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the first seconds of this tape is black, it's audio. the visual pops on screen a few seconds into it. so watch. >> well then, mr. president, will you please stand? do you promise that all of the testimony that you will give in this matter will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? >> i swear. >> thanks. >> all right, you may commence your questioning.

>> thank you, your honor. mr. president, i would like to direct your attention to friday, september the 5th, 1975, in sacramento, california. where were you just prior to the incident in capitol park? >> i had been in the senator hotel which is on l street as i recollect across from the state capitol. >> that was the first time a sitting u.s. president ever testified as a witness in a criminal trial. president gerald ford, in 1975, gave his testimony on videotape while he sat in the old executive office building which is right next to the white house in washington, d.c. but the trial that his testimony was used in was not conducted in d.c. that trial was in california. and the person who was on trial in that criminal case was on trial for attempting to kill the president.

>> i noticed this lady in a brightly colored dress who wanted to apparently move closer toward me, and i assumed to shake hands. so i hesitated, instead of keeping moving as i normally do. and as i stopped, i saw a hand come through the crowd in the first row, and that was the only active gesture that i saw. but in the hand was a weapon. the weapon was large. it covered all or most of her hand as far as i could see. and i only saw it instantaneously because almost automatically one of the secret

service agents lunged, grabbed the hand and the weapon, and then i was pushed off by the other members of the secret service detail. >> how close did the weapon come to you, to your person? >> i would estimate two feet. >> president gerald ford gave that testimony in 1975. there was no indication at the time that that would ever become public. testimony was recorded in washington. it was then brought to california so it could be played for the jurors who were hearing the case of lynette fromme, who was on trial for trying to kill president ford. but that was supposed to be its only use. eventually the tape of the president testifying was released because of advocacy by something called the eastern district historical society which tries to preserve the history of the court where the trial was held, the federal district court that sits in

sacramento. it's kind of weird, right? that historical society wanted the tape released because it's part of a history of that court. the only time at this point that a president had ever been a witness in a criminal trial, right? the sacramento bee newspaper joined the historical society as well and the federal judge ordered that the ford testimony should be digitized and it was released in august. now that same court, that same judge who released the ford tape has also just agreed to release the other rather incredible tape from that trial and from that assassination attempt. it's the tape of lynette fromme, of squeaky fromme, the defendant in that trial talking about what she did. >> what are you charged with, lynette? >> attempted assassination of the president of the united states. >> if you were to be found guilty of this offense, what penalties do you face?

>> from a number of years to life in prison. >> okay. so that's a pretty heavy offense that you're charged with. >> yes. >> new tapes are just over two hours of audio, 20 minutes have been released so far of her talking to a psychiatrist about why she thought she should be allowed to represent herself at the trial. she was 26 years old at the time of this mental exam, which is on the tape. it was about two weeks after she had -- she put on a print dress and then she put on a big flowing red robe over the dress, all the better to conceal the huge pistol that she had strapped to her thigh with a belt. she was only about 105 pounds at the time she did this. the gun that she pulled on the president as he crossed from his hotel over to the state capitol was a huge gun. it was a colt .45. she never actually fired the weapon. whether that was intentional or

whether she screwed up was never determined. the assassination attempt was in sacramento. squeaky fromme was living in sacramento at the time in part because charles manson was imprisoned at the time in folsom. that was after the 1969 manson family cult murders in los angeles and manson was in prison for those murders. squeaky fromme was a devoted member of the manson family cult. she was visiting manson frequently. she had attended his trial. she had carved an x into her own forehead to show her devotion to charles manson. she wanted to be seen as sane for her trial. she wanted to represent herself. >> how have you been feeling generally? >> i feel pretty good. >> are you bothered to any significant degree by anxiety, nervousness, tension? >> no. never have been. >> even under these

circumstances? >> no. i make the best of any situation i'm in. >> what would you estimate to be your percentage chance at this point of being found not guilty? >> i have already decided exactly what i intend to ask the jury for, and i don't know if i should answer that. >> well, most of us when we enter into a situation of difficulty have at least some kind of estimate going in the back of our mind how likely we are to be successful. >> oh, i feel -- i feel definitely that i have probably a 70% chance -- >> of being not found giuilty. >> on the percentage scale. >> the press has made a number

of dmepts to the effect that you're a rather daft broad wandering about in this world following begotten causes and so forth. how do you feel about that? >> i'm working through it the best way i can. i feel this trial conducted with a little bit of dignity would help tremendously. >> so you would look for your image to go up? >> well, no, wait a minute. >> no? >> the judge has already stated that this is not a forum for me to express my views or for me to do anything for my image in other words. i'm just saying that incidentally that -- >> you think your image would improve though by how you would conduct yourself in a court of law? >> that's right. >> actually, when she was in the court she threatened the judge and said she knew where he lived and described his living room.

he pulled out an apple and tried to bean the judge in the head with it. she missed and hit the prosecutor instead during his closing argument. she hit him in the head and knocked off his glasses. the judge responded by asking if she had anymore apples. she said she didn't. she was convicted and she got life in prison. at one point squeaky fromme escaped from prison and they recaptured her two days after she escaped. the release of these tapes is a palpable reminder of how bizarre those times were. a known member of the manson family really did get within two feet of the sitting u.s. president and pointed a loaded colt .45 at him. that happened on september 5th, 1975. by november 1st, 1975, by the time the president got around to recording the first ever testimony of a sitting president in a criminal trial in the case of his would-be assassin, at the time he was answering questions

of this witness, by that time somebody else had already tried to kill him again. 17 days after squeaky fromme pulled a gun on president gerald ford in sacramento, sarah jane moore not only pulled a gun in sfrachb san francisco, she fired but she missed. it was the second assassination attempt against the president of the united states in less than three weeks. and both of those attempts had just happened when the president sat down calmly to give this testimony. the squeaky fromme tape and the gerald ford tape do not cover history that we didn't know about before we knew these things happened but we never had the words and the moving images from that almost unbelievable time before this week. the sacramento b is a big part of the reason we have it. the history geeks and the journalism geeks have some things. we have links to the newspaper footage.

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seed your lawn. seed it! president obama overseas. he delivers a message to u.s. troops with sharp words for one country. a live report next. dangerous weekend weather. storms sweep through parts of the mid-atlantic but more is on the way so where is it headed? hitting the jackpot. why are a lot of people headed to new jersey just to stay in their hotel rooms? the answer in big money headlines. in office politics, chris hayes, he talks about his latest politics on climate change and his interesting take on the keystone pipeline. good morning, everyone. welcome to weekend