had never had any position in any law enforcement agency ever before but he had given money to deborah trout's one thing the hires had in common is along with the new sheriff, along with sheriff trout, they were all, quote, members of the warren county spca during the years michael russo ran it as a wing of some fantasy cat police military. the all powerful county branch of the spca with the tear gas and sniper rifles essentially moves over and becomes the actual sheriff in the neighboring county? sheriff trout's tenure was short and contentious. a recall effort against her. she was alleged to making her employees sign loyalty oaths to her. she became friends to a contributor of governor christie's campaign. somebody who served on governor christie's transition team. in return for getting to fly on that christie contributor's private jet, he apparently was given some sort of pseudo police i.d. from hunterdon county that made him look like a pseudo police official. when asked by "the new york times" if that christie contributor, this very rich guy did in fact get a fake police i.d. from sheriff

ben says he was fired because he refused to drop a case against county sheriff and christie ally deborah trout. he will continue his plea at a hearing tomorrow for the attorney general's office to release grand jury transcripts to prove his case. and that's not even the end of it. over the weekend, we released an in-depth report detailing christie's other traffic jam. that is christie's decision in 2010 to kill a new rail tunnel project that would have run from new jersey to new york city. something that could have created tens of thousands of jobs and brought billions of federal dollars to the the federal coffers. later today, the governor will be attending a super bowl sbrie celebration in his home state. given the allegations, christie may be doing less partying down and more stressing out. joining me now is a political reporter at "the new york times" and michael isacoff. it sounds like the scope of this committee is going to be fairly broad. i want to talk to you about the people involved. kevin o'toole was added to the committee. he is a christie ally or at least someone who was very muc

barlyn and a team of fellow prosecutors announced the indict of a local department sheriff named deborah troutut, sheriff trout was close to chris christie. she backed his bid in 2010, was old friends with the lieutenant governor. barlyn announced his 43 count indictment against sheriff trout. the governor's office dismissed the case. barlyn now teaches at a middle school and is fighting a wrongful termination case against the state. his case is one of the most longstanding cases plaguing the governor's office. as the times reports, mr. christie's aides were confident. they were playing 3d chess while they're playing checkers. the governor would prefer his audience focus on another game entirely. >> in the end, this is about the game. it's not about all the other stuff. it's about the game. >> joining me now is ben barlyn. >> my pleasure, alex. >> i've been sort of stunned at the duality of responses prosecute the christie camp relating to your case. on one hand a spokesman said, this is truly some of the most wild eyed conspiracy theories i've heard in a long time. the attorney general is see

after he ensured an indictment in 2010 against deborah trout, he was fired. the case history killed by his attorney at the time. how much traction did this story get the first time around? and how much do you see it getting now? >> you know, it got some buzz. there was definitely buzz out there when this thing hit. you know, people were talking about it. one thing i would point out and was pointed out at the time, paula was a democrat. she was not a christie loyalist. christie has a ton of people that came with him from the u.s. attorney's office. she's a democrat. >> but she came from christie's u.s. attorney's office. we should be clear. >> my point being, she wasn't one of the republicans who has followed him throughout his administration. she is a democrat. so that was pointed out at the time, and you know, as i said, some of the things get looked at through a different prism. i'm not saying in this case. but wait, i was bullied, too. anybody who looked cross eyed at by the governor is now saying he bullied me. >> there's a sliding scale of what bullying