speech was deliberately edited to create a false impression of racial bias. >> couric: all right, jan crawford in washington. jan, thanks very much. in other news, the meltdown in the housing market and the financial crisis that followed. congress is slowly peeling back the layers as it investigates who's to blame. new documents reveal a cozy tie between two key players that cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. sharyl attkisson tonight follows the money. >> reporter: the partnership between countrywide and government-backed fannie mae is partly to blame for the housing crisis. they made billions buying and selling each other's toxic loans. but as they were sending american's housing market down the tubes, new documents show countrywide and fannie mae were quietly scratching each other's backs. >> we make bad loans, you take them, we're off the hook. it's that simple. >> reporter: issa says to sweeten the deal, countrywide gave dozens of top fannie mae officials v.i.p. loans and special treatment that often included discounts worth many thousands of dollars. taxpayers lost out, they've k

we begin tonight with jan crawford in washington. jan, this is a very bizarre two- day drama. >> reporter: oh, yes, katie. and we heard today the kind of thing you seldom here from the this white house or any white house. >> without a doubt ms. sherrod is owed an apology. i would do so certainly on behalf of this administration. >> reporter: that was a 180- degree turn from what administration officials said less than 24 hours ago when agriculture secretary tom vilsack abruptly fired shirley sherrod. >> i made this decision. it's my decision. >> reporter: after officials saw this edited clip of her speech. >> i was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farm lands and here i was faced with having to have a white person. >> reporter: late this afternoon vilsack talked to sherrod >> again, i express my deep regret. >> reporter: the controversy consumed almost the entire briefing by press secretary robert gibbs, at one point a flustered gibbs was even told sherrod was watching it on television. >> apparently sh

jan crawford reports. >> reporter: it starts by a speech usda official shirley sherrod, describing her attitude 24 years ago toward a white farmer. >> and i was with a white person save their land. so i didn't give him the full force of what i could do. >> reporter: that comment and the speech to the naacp lit up the blogosphere after a conservative website this week aired it and suggested there was reverse racism in the administration. agriculture secretary tom vilsack reacted swiftly. he says the usda has zero tolerance for discrimination and fired sherrod for those comments. >> when i saw the statements and context of the statements, i determined it would make it difficult for her to do her job as development director. >> reporter: as with so many issues of race, there's a lot more to this story. sherrod said later in the same speech she was wrong and ultimately helped the man save his farm, but that statement didn't get out on the internet. when the farmer and his wife heard the charges against the woman who helped them 24 years ago, they were shocked. >> she was just as nice as sh

jan crawford joins us with the latest. this story will keep you on your toes. >> you know what we saw yesterday, something that hardly ever happens in this town. a flat-out no strings apology. >> without a doubt miss sherrod is owed an apology. >> reporter: that about-face came wednesday afternoon and less than one day after agriculture secretary tom vilsack abreeders cuply fired shirley sherrod. part of the speech last spring to the naacp. but that wasn't the whole speech or the whole story. as. >> as it was unfolding, my whole thought was this is so unreal. >> reporter: vilsack apologized to sherrod and offered her another job. >> i express my deep regret. >> reporter: late last night sherrod responded. >> i was satisfied with it. i told him i appreciated the apology. >> reporter: the controversy started three days ago when the clip lit up the internet and cable outlets. in it sherrod reflected on her reluctance 24 years ago to help a poor farmer because he was white. it turns out sherrod didn't say anything racist at al

cbs's jan crawford.hen a united airline jet was rocked by severe turbulence. flight 97 en route from washington to l.a. but was diverted to denver. the 777 landed safely last night. passengers said the violent turbulence struck quickly about two hours into the flight. >> the person behind me, he actually flew up, and then he landed across the aisle onto somebody else's head. so he got a bump and a bruise on the chin. >> it was pretty bad. laptops was everywhere. it looked like there was a huge party on the plane but there wasn't. >> one of the passengers was critically injured. there were 255 passengers and 10 crew members on board. >>> stormy weather threatens to set back possible plans to plug the oil well in the gulf with a static kill. this is a live picture of the containment cap on the leaking well. so far holding tight. several leaks have been discovered but are described as very small. a storm in the caribbean could develop into a tropical storm and hit the gulf over the weekend. and that could d

jan crawford in washington is our chief legal correspondent, and, jan, judge susan bolton didn't strike down the entire law. so what does that mean, exactly? >> well, katie, she struck down every section the obama administration cared about. it was a complete victory for the administration. judge bolton accepted every major argument the administration made. she ruled the power to regulate immigration lies exclusivly with the federal government and the arizona law will burden aliens and u.s. citizens. she said she recognized arizona has significant interest in confronting illegal immigrants and, obviously, problems with crime but arizona still couldn't step into the federal government's role. >> couric: and, jan, here's a question for you from facebook >> tonight: how will illegal immigration be handled if states like arizona don't address the problem? >> well, the judge ruled that immigration say federal responsibility. i mean, that's what the obama administration had argued, that immigration was a federal responsibility. so this now puts the pressure on the federal government and the w

he talked about it with our legal correspondent, jan crawford. >> voting section attorneys have refused outright to work on these sorts of cases, saying things such as, "i didn't join the justice department to sue black people. i won't work on the case." people who did work on the cases were harassed. there was terrible things that occurred within the department whenever certain people would decide that a race-neutral enforcement of the law was appropriate. >> schieffer: abigail thernstrom, president bush appointed you to the u.s. civil rights commission. you said that all of this thing about the black panthers was small potatoes. why did you say that? >> in the first place, you had two unappealing black guys-- unappealing because, you know, the new black panther party is unappealing. it's a racist party and so forth. they showed up at one largely black precinct in philadelphia. and they stand around and won is slapping a billy club against his wrist. one, there is... we have no direct evidence that they actually intimidated anybody, stopped them from voting. two, we certainly have no d