patrick foy is the only person in this story so far who does the right thing and says the right thingpart of the christie gang. he was appointed to his position at the port authority by new york governor andrew cuomo. it was patrick foye who wrote the e-mail saying, "i am appalled by the lack of process, failure to inform our customers in fort lee, and most of all by the dangers created to the public interest. i believe this is hasty and ill-advised decision, violates federal law and the laws of both states." michael drewniak got an e-mail from the new jersey star ledger reporter steve strenski asking him "is the governor aware of any plan last month to close the george washington bridge access lanes in retribution for mayor sokolichtion failure to endorse the governor for re-election?" his response was "no, for goodness sake, the governor of new jersey does not involve himself in traffic studies. he then forwarded that e-mail exchange to himself at his private g-mail address and from his private g-mail address he forward the entire e-mail to david wildstein in wild stooep's private e

. >> there's one item that looks potentially important and shows patrick foy who during this crisis called the lane closures quote, hasty and ill advised and raised the question over whether the closures would violate the law. there's talk in those same new documents being reviewed today about keeping that entire question, including what he was asking, keeping that secret. what do you make of what we're learning today? >> well, there is going to be a lot of documents that are going to need to be gone through not only by the legislature, we recognize state and federal prosecutors as well will be looking at these documents. we have a lot to learn. these documents are just a few. there are many more documents that we're going to need to get our hands on to get to the bottom of this. >> senator, you speak to the motives. i want to be clear for those who haven't followed every step of the chris christie sort of payback issue here. you had a very public fight with him. i want to play some sound of the governor speaking about you in the last year. take a listen. >> i simply could not be party to

can i ask you about this e-mail from patrick foy? because here we have the executive director of a major interstate agency worrying aloud we have federal laws that have been broken. does it appear anyone, michael, has followed up on his concerns? >> well, look, we now know that e-mail went directly to christie's office. so i think that's the question that the governor's people are going to have to answer. and regina egia is going to have to answer. one point the assembly democrats are making, the governor said during his press conference he asked every member of his staff a month ago to let him know within the hour what they knew about this. and he was assured that they knew nothing. now when he learns that bridget kelly, deputy chief of staff, from the e-mails obviously was directly implicated in this, he fired her. he fired her immediately. but now we know that somebody even senior to her also was informed about aspects of this. so one question is, what did regina egia say when she was told to report within an hour what she knew ab

he never called patrick foy and said, what laws might have been broken? did any of my people do anything wrong? then we fast forward, suldly when the e-mail appears right from his own front office, his deputy executive director, an e-mail that says time to create traffic. obviously that e-mail wasn't done in a vacuum. there had to have been discussions prior to it, maybe correspondence or texts, anybody's guess. but he fired her, never asked her why did you do this? that is so beyond belief from mr. hands on, i'm responsible for everything in new jersey, the buck stops with me governor christie. all of those holes are in that very dramatic wonderful presentation he made at thinks press conference, his apology to the mayor of ft. lee, i've been going here for four months. he never called and said to me, gee, what's going on here? i will tell you, i actually had a discussion i think it was sometime in november, with his chief of staff. and i said to the chief of staff, private one on one discussion, i was meeting with him on issues unrelated to this, but i

the top person to the port authority in charge of the george washington bridge, between him and patrick foy. foy says to bar oni after being upsaid -- baroni, he says bill we're going to fix had fiasco. baroni says i'm on the way to the office to discuss. there can be no public discourse. if everything is above board, why would baroni not want to have any public discourse? >> exactly. right now we know there was no traffic study, it was done for political pay back for some reason. and the new york side was made aware of it apparently. so these are individuals put there by our governor, who wanted to exact some revenge for somebody on the new jersey side. >> what do you think of christie himself? there is history of him being pretty tough on people he disagrees with. this is normally a guy who has common sense, a smart guy, do you think he would have been involved in something as stupid as this? >> i don't know and we don't know if he was directly involved in this but i sincerely doubt that ms. kelly, the one who was dismissed? was the -- was the only one who initiated this action from his i

he read, just like the rest of us did, the e-mail from the executive director, patrick foy, who said laws might have been broken here. he didn't attempt to find out what laws were broken here. and then fast forward. now we have a deputy chief of staff right in his own office. so it is very difficult for me to believe, having appeared at four port authority meetings over the last four months, that the governor yesterday suddenly noticed this was a really big deal. first he thought assemblyman wisniewski and i had nothing else to do, we were fix sated, then he made fun of the deal, it was no big deal, sure, i was out there rearranging the cones. just yesterday he found out thousands of people were put into jeopardy. that emt people could not get to the calls that came out. that schoolchildren -- you're driving your kindergartner to school on his or her first day to school and caught in a two hour traffic jam. he didn't know any of this until yesterday and then he had so little curiosity that he never asked bridget kelly, you were sitting in your office one day and decided to create a t

lee if patrick foy, a new york official appointed by governor cuomo didn't come forward. we would never have nope. that's why i called on the u.s. attorney's office to investigate it, to see if, in fact, there are other places in new jersey that were similarly affected. >> this is a really good point because the reason that this scandal blew up, the reason they were caught red handed is that the port authority is a bistate entity. >> right. >> and the new york side of the entity, new york appointees wouldn't play along with the charade. right? they say, i don't know what the traffic study is, what the heck is going on? it makes you wonder if there are other shenanigans happening throughout new jersey where everyone is under the umbrella of fear. what's there? >> chris christie said he was sorry. sorry he got caught. that's why he were sorry. if he were truly, truly sorry he would have come forward a hundred days ago when it was unearthed. no, what he did, he resorted to his showmanship, made jokes, said i was the guy moving the cones. it wasn't until this intrepid reporte

patrick foy port authority official terminated the lane closures. bill baroni, christie appointed port authority official who resigned in december over the controversy replied to the e-mail saying he was on his way to office to discuss and there could be no public discourse on the controversy. in response foy wrote bill that's precisely the problem. there's been no public discourse on this. now, this paper trail also shows at least one other member of governor christie's senior staff who hasn't been named publicly was forwarded an e-mail detailing the extent of the problems on the bridge. however, we don't know whether that staffer actually read that document, really no indication she was involved in any political retribution, anderson. >> this appears to be -- go ahead, jeff. >> reporter: no, no. the other thing i wanted to mention is, the mayor question is a huge question, anderson. and i know a lot of people have been interested in that, the mayor of fort lee, telling people he was being blamed for the problem with the bridge. and he wrote that t

you have patrick foy, the executive director of the port authority just going ballistic talking about the threat to public safety, endangering lives, pointing out that, you know, there are e-mails from ft. lee public police talking about somebody having a cardiac arrest, a missing child, the child is later found. but, you know, there were real public safety consequences here. a couple of other things. this took place the week of the anniversary of september 11th. >> i know. >> point it out in terms of public safety. and it was also during the week of yom kippur, the holiest day of the jewish new year. this is preventing people from getting home in time for yom kippur. so there are a lot of aspects to this. yeah. >> in those days very important for the enemies of israel and of course the enemies of the united states could have used to attack us. thank you, michael. great reporting from trenton. steve kornacki is the host of "up" on weekends. you've been so smart on this stuff. answer my open question at the beginning, steve. my theory here is that this guy, the governor of new jersey i

"i am appalled," writes patrick foy, the executive director of the port authority, calling the sclourz "hasty and abusive." "i pray that no life has been lost or a trip to the hospital delayed." this after the mayor of ft. lee who refused to support christie in re-election, reported delays for a child found in a cardiac arrest. but when the mayor called for relief, citing an urgent threat to public safety, christie appointee david wildstein's response to that message? "radio silence." wildstein, the port authority's now-fired deputy director, invoked his fifth amendment rights when called to testify. >> on the advice of my counsel, i respectfully assert my right to remain silent. >> reporter: but his lawyer says if wildstein gets immunity, he'll tell what he knows. >> you find yourselves in a far different position with respect to information he could provide. >> we just want answers to our questions. >> understood. >> i had no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or its execution, and i am stunned by the abject stupidity. >> reporter: christie has fired his deputy c

that was released yesterday which people are just noticing is there's an e-mail chain in which patrick foy, the expectative director of the port authority writes this absolutely furious e-mail saying these lane closures are abusive, ill-considered, a threat to public safety, and one of -- and that's on september 13th one of christie's people at the port authority, barrone, the deputy director forwards that to a woman named gina gia and is now his top chief of staff. it says urgent priority high, importance, high. so there's no indication whether or not she responded to that but i just spoke a little while ago with the chief spokesman for the assembly democrats, and he said -- tom hester. he said this i'm puts foy's complaint about those traffic jams right into the governor's office. it makes gina gia, christie's chief of staff a candidate for subpoena and that john wisniewski, the chair of the panel who was investigating this wanted to know what she knew, how she responded to the i'm and perhaps most performly you've played the clip. he was to answer within an hour. he sid he did that abou

it's a blastering e-mail from patrick foy, a new york side official here.g e-mail to a variety of folks involved, he calls this lane closure a hasty and ill advised decision. he said it resulted in delays to emergency vehicles. it had an adverse impact on the economy. he said he will not allow travel delays on yom kippur and he said he believes that this action violated the federal law and possibly state law as well here. so that gives you a sense of the level of outrage involved by some of the officials at least during the course of this traffic shutdown. what we haven't seen yet though is anything, as you say, to contradict what chris christie said yesterday, that he was entirely out of the loop and unaware of this and that he said yesterday he finds all of this unacceptable and he took action to discipline those aides who were involved. >> one of his appointees did take the fifth yesterday it should be noted. thank you so much for the details there. this skandal capturing the nation's attention. it's a white house story in washington, d.c., where many th