>> two more state supreme justices seem to be on the receiving end of some of those offensive e-mails. what's the fallout? let's get the inside story. ♪ good morning. welcome to "inside story." i'm tamala edwards. let's introduce you to the panel. we'll start our hellos with sharmain matlock-turner, a nonprofit exec. >> good morning. >> marketing executive brian tierney, good morning. >> good morning. >> law professor jan ting. >> hey, tam. >> good morning. and g.o.p. state official val digiorgio. >> good morning. >> a number of dramatic stories to get into. let's start with the latest iteration of porngate. the inquirer, in going through some of the e-mails sent to state supreme court justice eakin, discovered a few of them had also been sent to two other people who are on the court -- kevin dougherty and max baer. now, these are a few e-mails. baer got 10. dougherty got three. they seem to have received but not sent. but the question becomes, even the act of being in on this

chain, what does it mean for the two of them? let's start there and then branch out. >> well, number one, i think to be in on the chain seems to be in a crowd of thousands. i mean, it's amazing to me how many different people -- i mean, we're talking lawyers and law firms, judges, all kinds of people receiving these e-mails. and so it doesn't seem to me as, if they didn't forward them or open them, that there's a big issue for them, but the fact that this is going around is, i think, very disturbing. >> but at the same -- while they're getting this, they have a colleague, eakin, who is facing charges for misconduct. he got 120 of them, receiving and sending. his lawyer kind of couched things -- i'm not gonna throw anybody over the bus, but it does raise questions. does it strengthen his case to say, "it was the culture. why are you targeting my client?" >> well, it's an argument -- i mean, you use whatever argument you've got in defending your client, and that's what i think is going on. at the root of this, i think,

you know, all these scandals -- kathleen kane, the judges, the city commissioners -- i mean, i think the problem is we ask voters to vote for too many people in pennsylvania. and if you want voters to turn up at the polls and vote, you have to make it easy for them. and you don't make it easy for them when you make them vote for all kinds of people that they don't know for all kinds of positions that they don't know. i hear the criticisms of merit selection, but i think merit selection would be more likely to get us first-rate judges and first-rate office holders, rather than second-rate judges and office holders, like we have now. >> but would it ever get through? it's -- we have to start work on it. it won't get through if nobody supports the idea. merit selection is the way to go. we just have to look at states like delaware, their judges. they don't have scandals involving judges in delaware. >> i think that's -- i think merit selection makes a lot of sense. i do think, though, i mean, you would like to think that an

educated -- if it -- had the elections commission -- we'll get to that, i guess, a little later, was actually doing its job and encouraging people to vote, but i think you can't fault somebody for receiving an e-mail. >> right. >> okay? now, most of us, if we'd gotten these sorts of things, would at some point say, "you know what? please leave me off." it does show, i think, an interesting thing about the culture, though, of judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers. this is a club! you know, this is like -- we used to call it brother-in-law football in football practice, where you're like, "don't hit somebody too hard 'cause they're actually on the..." you know, and what it does show is that probably if you're in that circle, that club, you don't want to be the guy, as a defense lawyer or as a prosecutor, to say, "can you leave me out of that?" >> do you know who you sound like? you sound like kathleen kane, who says -- >> oh, my gosh, i hope not, 'cause i'd have to -- >> this is what i'm dealing with. >> that's the point i was gonna make. >> but she was part of that culture as well. kathleen kane is a whole other story. she's a train wreck, to be honest with you, and great movies and probably comedies and dramas will come out of this situation. >> we're falling right into kathleen kane's playbook, which

is to -- her argument is "all these guys are an old boys' club, and they're sending around these insensitive e-mails, so, therefore, i must be not guilty." and that's the argument, and here we're talking about that instead of her. another thing is, in the case of kevin dougherty, there of his e-mails were never even opened. so not only did he not send them. he never opened them. so this is -- and it just shows you where we are. this is a microcosm for a bigger issue in this country. political correctness trumps national security. why aren't we talking about the e-mails that are the real issue in this country, which is hillary clinton's e-mails and the fact that she put national security in jeopardy? no, this seems to be the bigger issue in pennsylvania. >> but i do think that there are also some bigger issues as it relates to the e-mails. this is really about people who are supposed to be helping to make decisions about life-and-death issues of people who are coming before courts, and this to me very much plays into the whole question of "is this about implicit bias?" when you send this kind of racist, sexist e-mails, what is

really being placed in the minds of the people who are receiving them, who ultimately are supposed to be making really good decisions in the courts? i think this is extremely serious. this is serious. >> this is not a trivial issue. this is not a trivial issue. this is a big deal. and the fact that kane is the one that exposed it -- and she has problems of her own, to be sure -- doesn't detract from the fact that this is a big deal that threatens the integrity of the legal system. >> but there's somebody on the list who, when asked about it, who said, "you know what? i think that there's too much political correctness. i have a right to my first-amendment rights." how do you walk that line, and what do you do -- if you say there's a problem in the culture, what do you do about it? everybody goes through training. what really changes it? >> you do have the right to your first-amendment rights, okay, but you also have the right to have public approbation, and people thinking "i don't like it." 'cause people have their rights to say that this kind of stinks. but this has nothing to do with kathleen kane's personal situation, as well. she's just trying to create a stir of other things that are unrelated to her own conduct, to

somehow say, in the end, "therefore, i didn't do anything wrong," which is not the case. >> winding up on this one, we've got a primary coming up in late april. at this point, you know, the question is is the supreme court gonna uphold them suspending her license? is there going to be legislative action? does it really matter? because unless a miracle happens, many experts are saying she's not going to be the winner in the primary. should they just run out the clock and almost stop talking about this, it's time to move on? >> but if a crime has been committed, i don't know how you ultimately do that. i mean, you have to take it to its logical conclusion. and if she has been found guilty of doing something that is illegal and improper, she's going to be tried for it, i think. but i do think that there are really two issues here. i do think digging into the courts and how they ultimately treat people is a very serious question that we cannot ignore. >> well, and the clock doesn't run out with the april primary. she'll still be in office for a period of time after that, so it's important -- >> what i was getting at, is it worth the continued effort to drum her out of office? >> yes. there has to be accountability.

i think the legislature, just like in washington, needs to fulfill its role over the executive branch, and, yes, she should be impeached or removed from office. >> let's talk about this. another big drama. bruce castor shows up -- well, an e-mail shows up that he says, back in september of this year, he sent an e-mail to risa vetri ferman saying, "hey, remember, back when this case was around 10 years ago, i had a verbal agreement with bill cosby's lawyers. we won't prosecute if you will sit for the civil deposition." risa sent something back the next day, "i don't remember that, and nobody has a written record of this." we now have the prospect of castor being called to the stand in early february to testify on cosby's behalf, saying, "we had a deal." >> so, that'll be interesting, won't it, because it'll be one man saying, "i had a deal," which he never doc-- come on. >> mm-hmm. >> he cut a deal with bill cosby's lawyers about something this critical and there was never a memo, he never mentioned it to his number-one deputy, risa ferman, he didn't

talk about it at all? i think it's a little hard to believe. >> is the antipathy steele this deep, that he'd be willing to crater this case that they're trying to move forward because of that? >> absolutely. we need to remember that back in september, castor was in a political race. he was being attacked for not having moved forward on it. and what every prosecutor fears when they drop a case, including attorney general kane, is some other prosecutor will come along, pick up the case, and win it, and show that you were a terrible prosecutor. and so that's steele's interest. that was kane's interest, not having these cases picked up by any other prosecutor that's gonna show that i was a terrible prosecutor. and that's what i think is really going on here. >> yeah. as a lawyer who's been trained to, you know, save our e-mails, save every evidence of an agreement that we make, for the d.a. not to save or document, memorialize this somewhere seems crazy to me. >> or for it not to be in the official record, even though

walter phillips, the attorney at the time... >> who is dead. >> ...who unfortunately has passed away, it still seems like this would be somewhere in the records. and for risa to say, "i don't know anything about it," she's the first deputy. she was responsible for managing this process. i don't think that it has credibility. >> let's ask a couple of questions, first to the lawyers on the panel. does it have legs, though, for cosby's current lawyers? because it's up to a judge to decide who is most credible. is there anything here for them that they could actually prevail? >> the lawyers' job is to make something out of nothing, right? even if there's nothing there, you've got to run with what's available to you. so you can't blame the lawyers for taking up whatever issue they think they can raise in a tough case. but i agree with val. there's no substance here. no competent lawyer enters into an oral agreement without recording it somewhere. that's just malpractice. >> and as a non-practicing lawyer but a member of the bar, i can tell you it's beyond belief, to be honest with you. and bruce castor, i think most

people would say, if you look at his career, he's a very complicated -- he's had a very complicated career, as well. but the fact that he would do something like this and not put a memo to file or something, i find it hard to believe. and i think a judge will find it hard to believe, as well. >> this is the question, brian. he's got to live with this. i mean, he's a guy who's run for office multiple times. who's to say he doesn't want to run again? if he does this, if he's on the stand, you do image, he will forever be remembered as the guy who saved bill cosby. what does this say for his future if it comes to that? >> i don't think he is thinking that he has much of a political future for elective office. there could be a chance for that. i think there must be something else kind of going on. but i'll tell you what, if you're the d.a. and you cut a deal like this 10 years ago, to not have the common sense to write a memo, do something to a file... it's just not believable. >> but i think it gets back to him justifying why he made the decision in the first place. i think this is quite logical, for him to continue this process. he said from the very beginning, "i did not proceed with any kind of prosecution because i thought that there was not evidence

there in order to do it." this seems to be in line with what he originally decided. >> but that's different than saying, "i agreed for there to not be a case." let's talk a little bit about atlantic city. a big surprise there for city leaders. chris christie just did what they call a pocket veto. they made some changes to a bill, they thought they were going to get budget help, tax-relief help. instead he let it die on the vine. they now have a $33.5 million gap, and the casinos down there are saying, "you know what, guys, you owe us money." the borgata wants $160 million. it's looking like bankruptcy. steve sweeney is talking about state takeover. is that where this is heading? >> this is headed to state takeover. the governor and sweeney are on the same page on this. they don't want a bankruptcy in atlantic city. it'll have a domino effect into other cities that are distressed in new jersey. you know, atlantic city spends four times more per capita than newark, the second largest city in new jersey. >> right. >> and there has to be cuts there, substantial cuts.

you're gonna need a state takeover to do it. there's not the political will to do it there now. >> these guys had the exclusive ability -- they had the exclusive franchise for gambling for 35 years? for 35 years. and instead of saying that "we're gonna use this to really build an economy here," instead you have, at the high school, four people, three or four people carrying the title of principle and being paid that way. on and on and on. the party's over, and now they want to kind of keep the party going. "can we borrow some more money? can we do this?" everybody's done. i mean, the gambling is everywhere throughout the entire country. it's gonna continue to expand. and atlantic city's leadership failed the people of atlantic city horribly. >> can a state takeover make it work? will we see substantial differences? >> i hope so. but i'm telling you, after seeing what happened in flint, michigan -- i know we're not talking about that today, but with the horrible situation with the decision around the water and the lead that's in there, i don't think that we should look as a state takeover as, "oh, my god, it's a panacea." it has got to be well-managed, it's got to be reviewed. everyone needs to know who's making what decisions for what reason. and a lot of these are not just

about saving money. it's trying to figure out, when the state needs to put some more money on the table, are they gonna be willing to do that? >> is this about north jersey? >> certainly seems like governor christie's focus is on new hampshire and not on new jersey at this point. he seems very disengaged from the processes. all this turmoil is shaking new jersey and atlantic city. he needs to be more engaged. >> well, the question becomes is this about north jersey, which has wanted to get in on the gambling game, has tried to put some things out there. is this a quiet way of saying, "you know what, you guys have failed us. let's see if north jersey can do better with this thing you have"? >> "the party's over," i think is what they're saying to them. and, you know, you guys have -- you know, you run up the tab, you haven't done the kind of things that need to be done, and you're not gonna have the exclusive franchise. speaking of the party being over, anthony clark, who is the chief commissioner, this week we saw a huge turnabout. he had been allowed to run and hold these offices forever. we saw butkovitz come out this weekend, say, "hey, maybe there's a way we can rewrite some rules, descriptions, to go after him." watchdog groups came after him.

brady went after him and said, "we had a gentlemen's agreement that he would step back from being the chair." he's under fire. is he going to be pressured to resign, or he's gonna do this for the next four years and take his half a million -- $500 million -- i mean $500,000 drop payment when it's over? >> i think he's made clear he's not going anywhere. he doesn't want to go anywhere. the committee of 70 says it's not enough to get rid of him. we need to get rid of the whole patronage, board of commissioners. i don't even think that's enough. as i've said before, i think the problem is asking the voters to vote for too many people. and those amount to patronage jobs even though they're reluctant. the bosses can all say, "oh, that's the voters' fault. they picked the wrong people." but they're actually patronage, because you need patronage to get into those places. >> to get rid of it, you need a council vote, the mayor's signature, and a public referendum. they did it clerk of quarter sessions. can they do it here to get rid of the commissioner? >> you know what, and the political class doesn't want to lose those, because they like being able to have the party the

way it's going now. so, if in atlantic city, it's midnight for the party, here it's around 11:30, i guess, is what you would say in terms of where things are going. but i did love clark's comment, when he's vacationing and traveling around the world, saying, "i learned a long time ago i want to work smart not hard." [ laughter ] well, the part that he missed is the work part. show up to work, for pete's sake. >> let me just say, there's an argument -- there's an argument to keep it. you need to have a republican in that office, and you're not gonna have a republican in that office to make sure that there's at least the appearance of fairness there in an important election month. >> yeah, but the republican voted for anthony clark to be chair of the commissioners, so i don't think -- >> but some think that was about "i'll give you that and you let me run the office. i'll get some things done." >> i don't buy that argument. i think, in the end -- >> speaking of buying... >> we got to go? okay, sorry. >> it's commercial time. let's give it to them and we'll come right back. >> [ laughs ] all right. >> "inside story" is presented by temple university. temple fuels students with academics and opportunities to take charge. plugged into the city, powered by the world. temple.edu/takecharge.

♪ i had an injury to my neck. it wasn't as serious injury it was a herniated disc. anything that could go wrong went wrong. i've been in the hospital twenty three times since. the bills started to pile up. i had nothing to give. we had nothing in the refrigerator. i would be dead and not sitting here right now if it wasn't for pond lehocky.

♪ >> welcome back to "inside story." city council is back. they took up a number of issues. and one got a lot of attention, being brought to the floor by city councilman curtis jones, who is muslim himself, asking the question, "can't we add two more holidays for the school year and city employees to cover muslim holidays -- two eid celebrations, one for the end of ramadan, one for the feast of the sacrifice, or to mark the end of the hajj?" it was passed by unanimous vote,

no dissent. mayor kenney seems to be open to it. it still has to get past the src and by city officials. let's ask the basic question -- should it? should we add these two holidays? >> yeah, i think absolutely we should, and i think we have some experience now to take a look at. mayor de blasio did the same thing in new york, and one of the holidays actually occurs pretty much during the school year. because of the way the calendar works, it's not the same day every year. and the other one seems to occur sometime during the summer, so there was some issue around summer school. but they seem to have been able to make it work. and what the argument there was, which is very similar to the arguments that i heard early on about jewish holidays, this really does affect a lot of people... >> 20% in the city. >> ...in the city. in new york, in some districts, it was up to about 50%. and so they felt it was a good idea. i think it's really a good idea here for philadelphia, as well. >> i think it's a bad idea, and i'll tell you why -- because is 20% the threshold, or maybe

somebody else would say 10% or we're now 12% of the population. i had somebody work with me one day and say to me a while ago, "i'm gonna take off next tuesday." and i'm thinking, like, "the feast of the miracu--" i'm trying to think whether it was a religious holiday, and it was the birth of the bab. she was a baha'i. i said, "i support it all. take one of your personal days." i think that's the answer here, is to give people personal days. you can take it off because the lunar eclipse or eid or christmas or whatever you want to do, but have it as a personal day that you can -- >> so you wouldn't make christmas or yom kippur a holiday? >> i personally think the fourth of july and christmas, because it's such a huge holiday, would be different. but i think when you get into other -- i think it's easier -- 'cause can't you just see how other religious groups and buddhists and everything -- >> but, brian, i think it's different than schools. i absolutely agree with you on the adult side. the adult side is -- what we do in our organization -- people get a certain number of personal days, floating days, and they get to use them for other holidays. we have people who are of asian descent who have special holidays, as well. but i think this is really about

what happens in schools when you have large groups of students who have to be out for some period of time for a holiday, how do you accommodate that? and this is a non-binding resolution. i think there's a lot of room for a lot of conversation. but i hope that we'll have a really open and honest conversation. and, like i said before, there are some places for us to look at and see. >> "how do we accommodate the prayer needs of the faithful?" is a different question than whether we should have these additional holidays. i think whenever we do something that costs money, we have to ask the question, "what's the trade-off? where are we gonna get the money to pay for this?" maybe there should be a trade-off of holidays. maybe we shouldn't celebrate presidents' day, which honors presidents that were slave owners, you know. maybe we should think about how we pay for the costs of letting people off. >> i absolutely think those are great questions, which is why i think council did not do a binding resolution. they said, "let's open up this conversation. let's study it, and let's figure out what's fair for everybody."

>> it's fair for discussion. i agree with you on this one, sharmain. and 20% seems to be a high number to me, and i think it's worthy of a conversation, anyway. >> let's talk about this -- last week on the panel, we raised the prospect of the people who were running against fattah for his congressional seat and how dwight evans would do. he seemed to have a lot of money on hand. now he's put out a poll that he's paid for from the public policy polling company that was pretty surprising. it says that he is beating fattah 2 to 1 with black voters and 3 to 1 with white voters. now, fattah was just endorsed by any number of democratic leaders. anthony hardy williams going, "yeah, but he paid for the poll." in this city, that tends to be the only way you get a poll. is the poll telling us something surprising, or should we dismiss it, as anthony hardy williams did? >> no, i don't. and i think it's logical and makes a lot of sense that there'd be a certain fattah fatigue. i mean, this has been an ongoing drama in terms of the situation -- whether you think it's fair or not, i could see people saying, you know, "dwight evans worked hard. he was the chairman of the budget committee. it's time for a new voice and a

new face, and we're just sick of the drama." >> i don't think the fattah people are angry at dwight evans for challenging. i think they're sad about what's happened to the family, both the father and the son. and i think that poll, you know, probably has some reality behind it. i suspect dwight would not have released the poll if it didn't reflect well on him. but somebody always pays for polls. that's not a reason to discredit a poll -- because it was paid for. >> you're in the community. did those numbers sound right to you or too high? >> yeah, the numbers sounded right. i mean, i kept sort of going back and forth about, were people going to be mad that dwight was running, or were they gonna be sad about the whole situation? and i'm at the same place where jan is. i mean, it's an extremely sad situation. you never want to be in the position where someone who's been attacked and who hasn't yet had their day in court that, you know, you're willing to say, "okay, that's it." but the same time, if you look at pennsylvania, there are 15 congressional seats.

there is only one seat designated for a person of color. if congressman fattah were to lose that seat, you could ultimately see that the original candidates -- none of them were people of color. dwight is the only person of color in that seat. we have no women in the entire congressional delegation. this, to me, really is about service. it really is about what's in the best interest of the community and that district, and so i think that's why dwight's running. >> we'll take another break and come back to our insiders' inside stories of the week. ♪ garbage. that's the budget passed by the republican legislature in harrisburg. it's unfunded, unbalanced and unconscionable. it'll balloon the deficit. and cuts education by $95 million dollars. causing governments to raise property taxes. all while protecting the gas industry by refusing to make them pay their fair share. call your legislator. tell them to fund education, stop the deficit from ballooning out of control,

and build a better future for pennsylvania.

>> "inside story is presented by temple university. temple fuels students with academics and opportunities to take charge. plugged into the city, powered by the world. temple.edu/takecharge. >> welcome back. sharmain, we'll start with you. >> well, dishwasher, paper boy, shoe shiner, newspaper boy -- those were the jobs of our mayor, our superintendent, our fire commissioner, and also the

president of community college. it is time -- i know it's winter, but it's time to start thinking about summer jobs for teens. i'm urging everybody to remember this is an important strategy for us for kids. >> brian. >> eyes of the country on gerry lenfest and the philadelphia inquirer this week, with the donation of creating this new foundation and donating the papers and 46 acres in conshohocken. he's a friend, he's a client. he was an investor, fellow board member, as well, with me. so i want to disclose that. but hats off to gerry and marguerite lenfest. >> jan. >> this week, in response to a congressional request, the u.s. department of homeland security released a report confirming that in the year 2015 alone, 500,000 foreigners who came to the u.s. on temporary visas overstayed their visas, did not leave the united states. welcome to america. >> val. >> presidential politics -- the sword of damocles hangs over hillary clinton's head with a potential indictment. it's well known the obama folks don't like the clinton folks. and potentially an indictment could come down and they would parachute joe biden into the race, who tweeted this week that

he regretted not getting into the race and that he's maybe ready to go. >> all right, we'll see what happens. thank you for joining us here on "inside story." we hope you've been able to dig your way out. we'll see you back here next sunday. ♪ i'm in in nydia han along h gray hall. septa service is gradually returning and commuters may be in for delays tomorrow. along the jersey shore high tides arena beach erosion are the big worries. those stories and the exclusive accuweather seven-day forecast next on "action news." the blizzard of 2016 is

over, but the bigout is beginning. we may be seeing mounds of snow is for quite sometime. it was a tough job with drivers getting stuck, and he