joining me now michael isikoff and itn correspondent robert moore. hael, why does the department of justice care about a new jersey civil case that was settled in 2009? >> well, you're talking about the floor graphics incident in which is company alleged that news america which is the advertising division of news corp. had hacked sbo its come computer system on repeated occasions to steal information for competitive reasons. now that's come computer hacking. it's not phone hacking. the question is it part of a broader pattern of conduct here. >> on our shores? >> on our shores. if in fact proouch there would be a u.s. jurisdiction hook, which is something prosecutors in the united states would need. now, look, this is still in an early stage. there's a lot of moving pieces to this and there's a lot we don't know. the central allegation that trigger attorney general holder's directive last week was the claim that 9/11 victims in the united states had their phones hacked. as of now, we have no hard evidence that anything like that took place. we have on

. >> michael isikoff thank you so much for keeping tabs on the hearing todd and for your insight. now let's bring in richard wolf who's been following this as well. before we get to the testimony can we talk about that pie in the face so to speak, the plate full of shaving cream that got flung. apparently it did spatter rupert murdoch a little bit which is why we're told he took off his jacket for the end of the hearing and wrap up of questioning. tell me about the tradition here and what we've learned about who this protesters was and what happened in this session? >> again, this started off on british tv many the '70s and has become a way of protest, it is what the mp called it, it was an assault on this person on rupert murdoch. thank goodness his wife stepped in the way she did. at least there was some

joining us nbc news investigational correspondent michael isikoff and itn correspondent michael moorewhy does the department of justice care about a new jersey civil case settled in 2009? >> well, you're talking there about the floor graphics incident in which the company alleged that news america, which is the advertising division of news corp. had hacked into its computer system on repeated occasions to steal information for reasons. that's computer hacking, not phone hacking. but the question is, is it part of a broader pattern of conduct here. >> on our shores? >> on our shores. if, in fact, proven, there would be a u.s. jurisdictional hook which is something prosecutors in the united states would need. now, look, this is still at an early stage. there's a lot of moving pieces to this, and there's a lot we don't know. the central allegation tra triggered attorney general holder's directive last week was the claim that 9/11 victims in sdwruntd states had their phoned hacked. as of now, we have no hard evidence that anything like that took place. we have one report from a rival news

that he may in fact be willing to go there. >> nbc news national investigative correspondent michael isikoffjoining me tonight, michael. >> thank you, lawrence. >>> coming up, virginia governor bob mcdonald flip flops on the debt ceiling, even though he never actually understood what the debt ceiling was in the first place. that's in tonight's "rewrite." >>> and later, one of our favorite funnymen gets serious to deliver a very important message. stay tuned for stephen colbert's powerful anti-bullying video for the it gets better campaign. that's coming up. every day, all around the world, energy is being produced to power our lives. while energy developement comes with some risk, north america's natural gas producers are committed to safely and responsibly providing decades of cleaner burning energy for our country, drilling thousands of feet below fresh water sources within self contained well systems and using state of the art monitoring technologies, rigorous practices help ensure our operations are safe and clean for our communities and the environment we are america's natural gas. [ dr

michael isikoff, nbc news, washington. >>> and there is news tonight from the intersection of sportsnd business in this country. nfl players voted today to accept a new contract with team owners, ending a four-month lockout that threatened to cancel the upcoming season. the owners will get more of the league's revenue in the deal while players won some gains in health care, free agency rules. the season, by the way, set to begin september 8th, with the former super bowl champion new orleans saints visiting the defending champion green bay packers. >>> in los angeles tonight, an arson unit is looking for whoever is setting a string of fires in north hollywood. 18 vehicles have been destroyed just since thursday. and officials are also investigating an apartment fire that sent two people to the hospital yesterday. >>> when we come back here tonight, the dramatic life and untimely death of a young woman with a soulful voice. so much talent, and a lost battle with the demons of addiction. >>> back now with the sad news from over the weekend of the death of amy winehouse in london. she ha

that he may in fact be willing to go there. >> nbc news national investigative correspondent michael isikoffthank you for joining me tonight, michael. >> thank you, lawrence. >>> coming up, virginia governor bob mcdonald flip flops on the debt ceiling, even though he never actually understood what the debt ceiling was in the first place. that's in tonight's "rewrite." >>> and later, one of our favorite funnymen gets serious to deliver a very important message. stay tuned for stephen colbert's powerful anti-bullying video for the it gets better campaign. that's coming up. >>> playing tough with the debt ceiling is a lot of fun until credit agencies threaten to downgrade your state's credit and you're the republican governor of that state. that's in "the rewrite" next. >>> and later, stephen colbert as you've never seen him. he breaks character to say it gets better. but not your wrinkles. new neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair. its retinol formula smoothes wrinkles in just one week. why wait if you don't have to. neutrogena®. >>> time for tonight's "rewrite." from day one of the debt ceiling cr

that he may in fact be willing to go there. >> nbc news national investigative correspondent michael isikoffr joining me tonight, michael. >> thank you, lawrence. >>> coming up, virginia governor bob mcdonald flip-flops on the debt ceiling, even though he never actually understood what the debt ceiling was in the first place. that's in tonight's "rewrite." >>> and later, one of our favorite funnymen gets serious to deliver a very important message. stay tuned for stephen colbert's powerful anti-bullying video for the it gets better campaign. that's coming up. >> announcer: this past year alone there's been a 67% spike in companies embracing the cloud-- big clouds, small ones, public, private, even hybrid. your data and apps must move easily and securely to reach many clouds, not just one. that's why the network that connects, protects, and lets your data move fearlessly through the clouds means more than ever. >> so, ah, your seat good? got the mirrors all adjusted? you can see everything ok? just stay off the freeways, all right? i don't want you going out on those yet. and leave your phone

i'm joined now by nbc news national investigative correspondent, michael isikoff. chael, i want to read for you, if i can, news corp.'s response to all of this. they said simply one sentence. james murdoch stands by his testimony to the select committee. where does this go from here? how serious could this be? >> well, we have a direct contradiction. what's interesting is one of the contradictors was the long-time lawyer, british lawyer for "news of the world," defended the company in court. he has indicated over the last couple of weeks that he's not going to be the fall guy in this and i think we're seeing the first indications of that right here. you know, is he the john dean in this story who's going to blow the whistle directly on corporate chiefs? that's the question here. so this is a significant development, no question about it. >> and the other significant development potentially that people have been waiting for is whether or not there are -- there's any substance to allegations that there was a news corp. phone hacking here in the u.s. you've been lookin

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let's bring in nbc news national investigative correspondent, michael isikoff. michael, good morning to you. how big of a threat is this in the news of news corp and this scandal? >> it's clearly becoming a bigger and bigger threat. what most people don't realize is that news corp is a huge u.s. media company that owns everything from 20th century fox to fox news channel and the wall street journal and the national geographic channel among others. it's a publicly traded company, which means it has obligations for full disclosure and to enforce u.s. laws. so we have multiple legal and public relations problems facing the company right now. of course the fbi is investigating whether there was any hacking in the u.s. but beyond that, there's probes into possible violations of the foreign corrupt practices act, which prohibits bribery, these payments to british police, scotland yard violate that? that's the question that the justice department is at least beginning to look at. and thirdly, you have shareholders' lawsuits. there's a big one filed by major pensions and

let's go to michael isikoff now. michael, good to see you today. i know you've been watching this hearing from the beginning, too. much of the investigation has focused on how cozy this relationship was between scotland yard -- >> do you guys want us to stick around? >> stevenson, the scotland yard chief who has resigned said he's embarrassed by the fact he hired neil wallace to be a media consultant. >> i should say in terms of news for american audience there were some very strong denials here by both from rupert and james murdoch that there was any evidence that 9/11 victims in the united states had their phones hacked. that's important because that's what the fbi is investigating. that is probably the most serious allegation relating to news corp. in the united states that's out there and they couldn't be more emphatic that they've seen no evidence of that and they have no evidence of that. now, again, they've made some pretty strong denials in the past. we'll have to wait and see this play out. but it is worth noting that on that front in fami

martin bashir and michael isikoff are my guests. ♪ ooh baby, looks like you need a little help theredo for you today? ♪ [ female announcer ] need help keeping your digestive balance? align can help. only align has bifantis, a patented probiotic that naturally helps maintain your digestive balance. try align to help retain a balanced digestive system. try the #1 gastroenterologist recommended probiotic. align. >>> it was a day of humble pie for rupert murdoch. first, there was this. >> i would just like to say one sentence, this is the most humble day of my life. >> then there was this. a man identified as activist and comedian jonnie marbles, charged rupert murdoch with a shaving cream pie, but one of the many reasons murdoch is married to a woman 37 years younger is that she is the best body guard in his entourage. wendi murdoch, seen here in the pink jacket, is a former employee of her husband and a former volleyball player who demonstrated the quickest reflexes in the room when she sprung towards the assailant and spiked the pie back in his direction. just before the attack, the c

michael isikoff is with us. michael, as we've been watching so far, things have been going along really well. this has been a very transparent and not a very raucous type of testimony that's going on until this moment that we just saw. and still it's unclear as we see the video playing back exactly what happened inside that parliament room. >> right. it's been an extraordinary hearing. i mean, you know, rupert murdoch is this almost wizard of oz like figure somebody you hear a lot about, clearly very powerful, but very rarely seen in a setting such as this one where he has to answer questions in public. it was -- it was a really interesting performance. right in the beginning he interrupted his son, james, very smooth, very suave, harvard educated to say that this was the most humble day of his life. but then as the questioning progressed, you saw a defiant murdoch at times asked at one point if he felt he was responsible for anything that went on, he answered bluntly, no. it was others who were responsible. he s

. >> joining me now, nbc news national investigative correspondent, michael isikoff. ning me tonight, michael. >> good to be with you. >> in the scandal that involves newspaper reporters coluting with reporters, is there a model the fbi is using here they may begin looking at newspaper operatives here in the united states for murdoch with american police officials, possibly in new york city, as these allegations suggest, and if they are, the most corrupt police officer at the time was the police commissioner, bernie kerik, as in london, we may end up seeing a story that goes all the way to the top to the police department here as it did in britain. >> right, it's an interesting theory, lawrence, but at this point there's no evidence to support that. there is this allegation from the daily mirror, which it's worth pointing out is a rival paper to murdoch, there were no names in it. it's very hard to assess the credibility of it. this is clearly the most serious allegation facing news corp. were any of this proven to be true, it would have a devastating blow on news corp

>> michael isikoff, nbc news national investigative correspondent, thank you very much for joining me tonight. you can have the last word online on our blog, you can follow my tweets. "the rachel maddow show" is up next. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, lawrence, thanks a lot and thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. on november 1, 1983, then-president ronald reagan wrote in his diary, dear diary, day began with gop congressional leadership, last night the republican senate very irresponsiblebly refused to pass an increase in the debt ceiling, which is necessary if we are to borrow and keep the government running. as we gave them a rundown, we took up the budget and the necessary legislation. i sounded off and told them i'd veto every darn thing they sent down unless they gave us a clean debt ceiling bill. that ended the meeting. okay, first of all, ronald reagan would swear when he wrote in his diary, but he would not write out the full swear word, so as enough to scandalize his diary. what was actually in the diary, what ronald reagan wrote in the diary

michael isikoff has been looking in to this. what do you know? what's the status of these probes? you know, the heat is turning up a bit. there's a report this morning that the -- the federal prosecutors are preparing subpoenas to news corp. on the phone hacking allegations. we also reported last night that the feds are interested in a prior act of computer hacking alleged against a major news corp. subsidiary, news america marketing, which was accused in a court case of hacking on repeated occasions into the computers of one of its compoters thcompote e competitors that led to an out-of-court settlement. there's a report today that news corp. has hired the former top prosecutor at the justice department in charge of foreign corrupt practices act. that's because one of the avenues of investigation is were those bribes paid to scotland yard officers by "news of the world" a violation of federal anti-bribery law. so, there's -- there's multiple fronts on which this is escalating for news corp., on top of the reports today that james murdoch may have to go back before parliament. >>

. >> then the michael isikoff investigation. this adds big problems. mean -- >> these are serious issues. if you have a pattern of this kind of activity, in england, it's going to be criminal. if there are criminal convicts, that feeds to the company and the company will have to deal with criminal convictions. if you have a criminal conviction you cannot have a tv license under american law. rep recushions of this, if it turns out to be the case are scary. >> they were in front of parliament saying we didn't know about the settlements that were 600,000 pounds, which is extravagant. this is millions of dollars. to say you didn't know your company paid $29.5 million for a similar violation. >> in the united states, right. >> it's only a matter of time until there's paper evidence or e-mail evidence of him being informed of this. >> they are lawyers in part. that is a separate issue apart from -- >> discovery. right. >> it will. the question is, is this the thing that brings this to the united states? it's always the piece that's been missing. >> the 9/11