the introduction of david sampson here is very interesting. he could be a lynch pin in all of these stories, insofar as he has been involved in -- and you guys have reported this, that the manhattan d.a. may be trying to connect sampson to not only the bridge lane closings, the alleged threat to withhold superstorm sandy aid, which mayor dawn zimmer brought forward, and the other potential conflicts that may have involved the port authority and potential developers. >> right. i mean, i sort of think of it as a trinity of interests here. we've got sampson on the port authority, who works for christie and sort of for his law firm in a sense, in that he is in a position to make decisions or order decisions or actions that could affect his law firm clients. he also is in a position to make decisions that could affect the political fortunes of christie, and christie's political fortunes can intersect with the desires of wolfon sampson's clients to get things like development projects. who knows what, we just don't know yet. that really is the crux

david sampson has a role in that scandal. they described it helping to retaliate defense other people at the port authority who were working to undermine the scheme and reopen the bridge lanes. mr. sampson seems to have reacted to news of the bridge lanes shut down by attacking the people who expose it rather than being at all upset that it happened in the first place. but then in the course of reporters looking in the bridge scandal, out came these stories about david samson's own apparent conflicts of interest as head of the port authority. did he use his position as chairman of the port authority, this public agency, to try to make more money for his private law firm or to help his private law firm's clients? well, according to this new reporting at main justice, preet bharara's office is working with the u.s. attorney in new jersey to try to answer that question about david samson. new piece of office number two, also broken by main justice, is about the scope and progress of the new jersey u.s. attorney's investigation i

a big part of this seems to be the david sampson. >> at vance's level, everybody is focused on sampsonnow with the committee, for example, the legislative committee that was weinberg are heading up, they are looking very seriously at when they bring their witnesses, they are not stopping with this decision by judge jacobsen. they are looking at putting witnesses on the stand again and my sourcing indicates that could very well be some of these port authority official who is testified last fall to the transportation committee the bridge had the division had maybe the executive director of the port authority to find out what sampson's role was in an official capacity as chairman of the port authority how he maneuvered, how he worked. the governor crihristie called m a hands off guy. all of our information is exactly the opposite that he was a hands on guy. and if he was a hands on guy, that means there's probably a paper trail. there's certainly a witness trail. if you start digging into that as the committee, lord only knows what they are going to uncover that might help either the fede

nick, i wonder, you know, we're talking about david sampson here. christie has continued to defend his honor. he didn't participate in the internal investigation. now we have the news reporting about his eyes and ears and operation from day-to-day and attracting attention. it seems to me the risk here for governor christie is given how close sampson is to him, a couple of things. isn't that what you do with an executive assistant? isn't that exactly what an executive assistant's job is, to be your eyes and years in everything going on? but put that aside. the governor's problem, it seems to me, and it's a political problem because he doesn't have any other kind of problem on this, is that he's damned if he does and he's damned if he doesn't. he's a fool if he didn't know if it was going on. you can't win the battle. you've lost the battle. >> the thing i've been wondering all the time, is there a thing in between where he sort of willfully, so if you say, okay, he didn't know from the very beginning, but he's a former u.s. attorney. he's a former fe

investigations as we reported in new york, manhattan, and in new jersey into former port authority david sampson, a close ally of christie, awarding -- being on the port authority while contracts of big importance were awarded to his klines, and there's other issues of course using the money from transportation for the trust funds for political reasons, really. and that leaves new jersey and anyone else using the transportation system there holding the bag, really, because the money is gone. >> indeed. >> so, yes, there's a lot to look at. >> hunter walker from business insider and mary jacobey from main justice, awesome scoops in this entire investigation. i direct everybody to their web simts. thanks for your time. >>> just ahead, if you thought stand your ground was something, wait until you hear about florida's new warning shot proposal. our very own joy reid joins me for a look at the gun shine state. >>> but first, officials call it a most promising lead and the best information so far in the search for malaysia airlines flight 370. details on the new pings that could finally solve the mys