from hunterdon county that made him look like a pseudo police official.rk times" if that christie contributor, this very rich guy did in fact get a fake police i.d. from sheriff trout his lawyer did not deny it and said, "let's assume he did. so what." also in sheriff trout's office, background checks for hiring were often not conducted at all or by strange means. sometimes the person whose background was getting checked would be the person overseeing the background checks on themselves. that's against the law in new jersey. it's against the law for a sheriff to not do a proper background check on new employees. eventually somebody told. somebody in sheriff trout's office called the prosecutor's office in the county in hunterdon county to complain of the allegations of loyalty oaths and fake police i.d.s for chris christie donors and no background checks and the hiring your friends from the paramilitary spca to come run the sheriffs office. on december 22nd, 2008, less than a year after sheriff trout took office, local prosecutors and state police did rai

that wasn't the case in hunterdon, however.resting is that when evidence of wrongdoing arose with respect to the sheriff's office, we requested the assistance of the attorney general. pre- christie. >> and she's a christie supporter sending her staff. >> that's what e-mails certainly suggest pertaining to an open public records act. more importantly, the sheriff also was involved in a group of law enforcement that basically obtained donations for the christie campaign. so yes, there is a strong connection between sheriff trout and the administration, particularly the lieutenant governor who was also a sheriff. she was the sheriff of monmouth county at the time debra trout was the sheriff of hunterdon county. so it's true. any typical case, we diligently acquired evidence over a period of time. at one point, we obtained a judge's authorization to conduct a search of both the sheriff's office and residences based on the cumulation of evidence. what's interesting about that and what's so important, that was the first finding by a

you think about that hunterdon story, that's the climate she's talking before. climate where that story can be reported on the first page of the new york times, it can be reported in other major outlets. it just landed with a complete thud. nobody even knew it happened. in this climate, because of dawn zimmer, many other things, that story is getting a second look, people are willing to consider what dawn zimmer has to say. i think she's absolutely right about that. if she had come on any show a year ago and said that, it's the same thing as the hunterdon story. >> there is some -- there's four members of that grand jury who say, this is craziness. we're on the grand jury, this was legitimate, and you have a civil case right now, by the prosecutor who was fired, asking for records from the state, they're stonewalling him on that, that's an active situation. more broadly, the thing you heard always about christie from new jersey people when you talk to them, was just like, man, this guy -- everyone's scared of him. >> you can be scared of someone who's a really g

after looking at hundreds of these cases, you have very familiar with these kinds of cases, the hunterdon case, if it's true that the governor's people used muscle to knock out a prosecution, then fire all the prosecutors because they were protecting some friends of theirs, that seems to be a more grievous situation and involving political muscle. and maybe it does fit into a rico statute if you can't trace to it the governor himself fingering these actions, you have to look at a pattern. what does your experience tell you? i know you have had the rostenkowski case. i know you have seen cases that you don't think are brought as a defense attorney what do you make of the reference to rico? >> overblown and premature. it's fun to spin those out. rico, whatever you say however broadly is written, it requires predicate offenses, that is a state or federal law that has been violated with sufficient criminal intent to engage that statute. i'm not sure i know what the crime is yet in this case. it may be that the promises to the -- or threats of withholding federal moneys to the mayor in hoboken

and thing, the hunterdon case is a real good example.course the george washington bridge is perhaps a spectacular example of the same. >> well, if you look at it in just cartoon terms, a governor's person gets indicted for 43 counts. he sends in his attorney general, or his attorney general jumps in, frees the person from indictment, exonerates them, and then now that he exonerates them, goes after the people who went after him in the first place and fires all of them. it is pretty complete a story here of politics, not just -- if justice at all, certainly politics. >> oh, yeah. i think that, look, you have three really top-notch career prosecutors, republican, democrat, independent. they all get essentially their careers trashed for doing their job, for bringing in indictment. and i talked to the grand jurors. i talked to four or five of the grand jurors. they all spoke. this really seemed like a pretty simple case. and it was a simple case. it looks like until the attorney general who is appointed by the governor intervened. >> well, i

in 2010, a grand jury in hunterdon county, new jersey, returned a 43-count indictment of a local shefb and her two deputies for abuse of power and misconduct. according to "the new york times," the sheriff was an active supporter of governor christie. but christie's appointed attorney general then moved in, before long the indictment against the sheriff's office was dismissed for what the state said were charges that sought to criminalize what it called simply bad management. well, there's no evidence that the governor himself ordered the dismissal of the charges. but the prosecutors who origi l originally brought the case were fired. and one of them joins us now, bennett barlin has fought a lawsuit against the state of new jersey. also with us right now is michael powell who covered the story for "the new york times." let me ask you, michael powell, thank you for joining us from "the new york times." this story you ran was in october, and it's only now, given the fact that it's january and after all the stories about the bridge closing and the mayhem behind it, if you will, it fits. t

ben barlyn is a former hunterdon county prosecutor who says he was fired in 2010 because he refused to drop a case against a christie ally. for the past year he's been striving to prove his story, paying through the nose for a civil lawsuit against the state while telling it to anyone who will listen. star ledger concluding their editorial with a state committee, a u.s. attorney's office or a specially appointed prosecutor to get involved and issue subpoena. so to turn the phrase from governor christie, it's not about the other stuff. it's about the investigation. joining me now is state legislator. is this a good merging of them? >> for sure. now we can focus on the facts and get the facts out. and it's not just about the bridge. the it's now about the misuse and abuse of government, the power, whether it be sandy money or whether it be stifling a prosecutor because he wanted and did indict a friend of christie's. >> thinks cause with fully reported. it was in "the new york times," which is hardly an obscure paper. it was reported by the new jersey press. it strikes me as a fact patte