saying the port authority ruined easter. look at the coverage the next morning, that was easter sunday, right? was the jam. the next monday, monday morning, right after easter, it's from the "staten island advance." motorists fume as port authority creates an hours long bridge backup. easter spirit gave way to traffic outrage yesterday, on what should have been a reasonable holiday commute turned into an hour's long ordeal. the reason, for most of the day only a single toll collector was working at the outer bridge toll plaza, meaning one cash lane was open, and there were miles of backed up traffic behind it. whether they were trying to get home after visiting family or friends from out of state or trying to catch easter dinner with loved ones on staten island, motorists found themselves frozen in parking lot conditions for hours. on easter. the traffic nightmare spurred numerous calls to the "staten island advance" throughout the day yesterday and through the early morning hours today. with motorists claiming to be stuck i

the port authority has more than 7,000 employees. and the average salary of those more than 7,000 employees, according to john wichlt sniewski is over $140,000. that's the average. and they have got 7,000 people. and when you've got that much money and that many people on that big a payroll, hey, you know what, there's always room for one more, right? the "new yorker" posted an article this week citing a lawsuit brought by a former employee of the port authority who sued over just how many politically connected people were getting stuffed into that agency, particularly by the chris christie administration in new jersey. according to this lawsuit, in the first two years that chris christie was in office as new jersey governor, he got nearly 50 people hired at the port authority. by the end of 2012, it wasn't 50 people he had shoved onto the port authority payroll, it was more like 80 people. he got 80 people hired as patronage hires. political favors, basically. 80 people at an agency where the average salary is over $140,000 a person

so, no we had great cooperation with the port authority. hy don vonn a republican who won county executive in berg man county and she ran against what was democrat machine. i was very positive about chris christie being a strong moderate voice in the presidential primaries. in reflection, i was wrong. i think he's morally challenged. i don't he deserves to be governor of new jersey. now you have another person governor cuomo a democrat who wants to be president and he's hid under a rock somewhere. he hasn't said a word. >> you do raise an interesting point which is when cuomo's people at the port authority were raising such a ruckus ag that is possibly a violation of state and federal law. we are out of time for this segment. i want to thank the former mayor of ft. lee who turned down a $500,000 bribe. what do we know now that we didn't know last week. ce is obvious. verizon's superfast 4g lte network is over three times larger than any other 4g lte network. act now to get $100 or more off any smartphone when you trade in any smartphone on a

right now one of every $5 being spent on transportation comes from the port authority. you want to really understand the relationship between chris christie and samson you have to understand how this happened and what the port has become. and that story starts with the killing of the a.r.c. tunnel in 2010 because it was not just the state of new jersey and the federal government paying for the a.r.c. tunnel. the port authority itself had a bunch of money set the aside for the project. a bunch of money as in $3 billion. $3 billion that could go instead to big ticket infrastructure projects in new jersey. that christie could take credit for. christie public hadly said he want that had money to go to new jersey projects and if he didn't get his way he said at the time he would hold up funds for the world trade center is and the tappan zee bridge replacements, both entirely on the new york side. but by early 2011 he didn't have to make those threats because early that year the port authority got a new chairman, david samson. the former new jersey general. the month after sa

port authority chairman david sam san. bill baroni the former deputy director of the port authority appointed by christie. david wildstein. appointee at the port authority. kevin o'dowd. his appointee to become new jersey attorney general. regina agea, christie's chief of staff, maria comella, christina geneves. christie aide. matt mowers christie's former regional political director, and evan ridley, another christie aide. philippe danielides. senior adviser to the port authority's chairman david sam san. christina lado, the port authority's director of government and community affairs for new jersey and paul anaunz at-to. also nicole davidman who worked on funding. colin reed who was the deputy press secretary and christie for governor incorporated and the office of the governor itself. let me go to assembly leader louis greenwald. sir, thank you. give us a sense of what this widespread of subpoenas tells you about the nature of the investigation now being undertaken. >> well, chris, we've cast this net based upon the ad

his top appointee to the port authority? what happens to his deputy chief of staff who apparently gave the order directly to do this to fort lee, what happens to the governor's spokesman who's mentioned in the e-mails today as being involved in managing the exit of david wildstein, and crafting a thankful statements for governor christie, praising david wildstein as a tireless advocate for new jersey's interests. what happens to the governor's spokesman now? what happens to the chairman of the political party now who was involved in crafting this response, and just this week got elected to run the political party in the state of new jersey and advising the national governor's association, since chris christie runs that thing now and he's going to run for president. in new jersey's largest paper today a blistering editorial lays out the stakes. this was an outrageous use of public resources. and apparently a massive lie. governor christie's attempts to laugh this off appear to be dishonest, we can't be sure he personally knew

now, that's the port authority. in chris christkrooe chris chri other than bridget kelly, we've saw e-mails from her boss, kevin o'dowd, chris christie's nominee to be the next chief of staff of new jersey. and regena egea. and his chief council, who christie says is one of two people who direct report to him on this issue of the bridge shutdown. also the governor's chief spokesman, also the governor's other spokesman, also a high-level staffer in the governor's office. the governor's director of departmental relations. her name is christina genovese. also subpoenaed today, a low-level staffer named evan ridley, who we know took a call from the mayor of ft. lee during the shutdown, when the mayor was desperately looking for somebody to listen to his complaints about what was going on in his town. that's the governor's office as governor. over at the governor's re-election campaign, the people who have received subpoenas includes his campaign manager, bill steppian, his spokesperson, the campaign staffer who asked th

chairman of the port authority. he headed up the governor's transition team when the governor first became governor. the governor said yesterday even though chairman david samson's name turned up in the first very provocative 22 pages of leaked documents, said he was helping take part in retaliation, although we weren't sure what that meant from those documents. the governor said in his press conference that he sat down with david samson, talked to him for two hours. he's confident he had absolutely nothing to do with this. how does david samson come across in these documents today given that he's been so important to chris christie? >> well, the other thing this really shows, which we only had in vague indications from our source, was that the new york and new jersey sides of the port authority basically went to war after pat foye found out about the lane closures and reversed them and samson is the key figure here. just infuriated by the fact that pat foye's e-mail got to us and got to other newspapers. and really

but he did pick him to be head of the port authority. when the lanes were shut down on the george washington bridge, the state center who represents fort lee picked that commissioner, the guy who was the county executive for that county, as the commissioner that she wanted to complain to. she picked him as the person she was going to ask for help in figuring out what had gone wrong. she wrote, dear commissioner schuber, i am at a loss for words regarding the authority's sudden change in the traffic patterns from fort lee. reducing the number of lanes in high peak time has caused significant hardship for those in the area. i'm disappointed by the authority's response. but on a personal level i'm disappointed in your lack of advocacy. when you were confirmed before the senate you stated both privately and publicly you were going to be the voice for bergen county residents. sadly, this does not appear to me to be the case. blistering letter. from an old political foe. loretta weinberg had run against him and he had won. even though he's a r

he was working in the port authority. a former senator.at title on him, senator barone. i think it confuses some people. >> yeah. and said i would like to continue to discuss our business with the port authority, he does not respond. and mr. fulop in one of those e-mails says i think there's some political overtones in that. now, that is very -- in keeping with what mark sokolich, the mayor of fort lee, said in a letter to bill barone we first reported on that said there's something punitive about this. there does seem to be some traction to this theory that democrats who actively chose not to endorse mr. christie faced some issues. >> and people who don't know how government works, especially at this level, which is to say most people, hear oh, well, he had some appointments canceled, big deal. but this is the essence of the workings of government. and this is what we heard george will talk about in the previous segment, where he said that what this shows is they are using the machinery of government as a weapon. those commissioners wield

made by the new york side of the port authority. and it turns out they couldn't get the new jersey side to go along with them. so the new york side, the side appointed by andrew cuomo, the democrat, they're the ones who are demanding people who work at the airports get a raise. so people who work at laguardia and jfk in new york, are probably going to get a raise. but the other local airport is over the border in new jersey. and the chris christie appointees at the new jersey side of the port authority have decided they're not going along with this. so there's these three airports within a few miles of each other. they're all under the same agency. the two new york ones, everybody gets a raise. the new jersey one, no. no minimum wage increase for you. and so, ergo, politics. the "new york daily news" posted this editorial this afternoon. "chris christie says drop dead." "governor christie is giving airport workers the shaft despite governor andrew cuomo's timely push to raise their salaries. get lost says christie who is stomping on

this is in june at another port authority event. in case you're interested, the guy on the right, that's david samson, the port authority chairman. and the guy on the left, that's bill baroni, the other guy who had to resign. in the middle there, that sour hero governor chris christie and, again, david wildstein. the governor says he can count on one hand the number of times he's interacted with david wildstein since hired at the port authority in 2010. if christie has the expected number of fingers, that would mean it only happened five times and, hey, there happens to be photographs available of two of those five times including one taken during the shutdown on september 11th. there's something else going on, too, that does not jibe with how the governor described this scandal and knowledge of attend his role in it. the day after this picture was taken of chris christie and david wildstein together during the traffic jam on september 11th, the day after that, a thursday, the day -- that was a wednesday. the day after that was a th

port authority chairman david samson. bill barone, the former deputy director of the port authority appointed by chris christie. david wildstein. kevin o'dowd. regina agea, christie's chief of staff, maria comella, christina geneves. and evan ridley, another christie aide. philippe danielides. christina lado, the port authority's director of government and community affairs of new jersey and paul nunziata. also nicolle davidman, colin reed, press secretary and christie for governor incorporated. and the office of the governor itself. let me go to assembly leader louis greenwald. give us a sense of what this widespread of subpoenas tells you about the nature of the investigation now being undertaken. >> well, chris, we've cast this net based upon the advice of counsel from the original e-mails that were turned over and a scan of those e-mails and an investigative review to see where the points of connection were. these subpoenas are discovery tool. they are nothing more than that. they are not to cast blame or take anythin

port authority, former attorney general samson. the governor today expressed lots of concern and disappointment and anger he'd been lied to even face to face by people close to him, former attorney general samson is mentioned in the e-mails and text messages that were released yesterday by the record as having taken part in the, quote, retaliation involved in this whole kerfuffle. >> retaliate against the executive director because -- >> of the port authority. >> -- he reversed the lane closure. >> governor christie today said he talked to chairman samson about that and is assured chairman samson had nothing to do with it so he considers that matter closed. he takes his word for it. do you find that dissatisfying? >> well, i think there are so many holes in this whole story, and having appeared before the port authority commission, which i find so frustrating because they happen to be all men, but they all looked at me, you know -- next month she won't be back. and i haven't heard one of their voices. not one of them has said, gee,

the port authority counselled him.'s another question raised in here and that is the port authority's whole role in this particular incident. we have a lot of work to do on this committee and i would hope that everybody who receives subpoenas would give us all of the type of work that we ask for and that we can move ahead to guarantee that the people of new jersey find out what went on here. >> is the governor and his staff cooperating with you? >> well, the documents are not due until monday. so i know that many of the people have asked for some extensions. they are putting in impartial documents and extensions. i don't have all of that information and we won't have that information until monday. >> jeffrey toobin has a question for you, majority leader. >> senator weinberg, do you think paul fishman, the u.s. attorney who does have the power to give immunity, do you think he should give immunity to david wildstein? >> i'm not going to pass judgment on that. first of all, i'm not an attorney although as i've said, i'v

these guys they give these jobs to at the port authority are up to.end one e-mail and all of a sudden the bridge stops. who gives people this authority? wouldn't that be a reasonable problem to know what the hell is going on? >> very fair question. >> a democrat doing it. >> if it was a democrat i worked with, again, when i was an undercover agent who had reputation as u.s. attorney that this governor has, if it's a democrat that had the reputation for the last four years, working bipartisan and having an exemplary record for the state of new jersey, i would not be skeptical. the last thing is, here, i'm hearing from democrats how outraged they are, angry, this, that, the other thing. from the democratic party, let's be honest here, from fast and furious, to benghazi, to the irs scandal -- >> i knew you'd -- >> where have the democrats been angry? >> i wish i could erase the record. i know what you did there. -- >> it's ridiculous. >> you vomited out the usual charges against the democrats. fine, nice work. >> let's not be complete hypocrites. >> i'm

so what exactly is the port authority. it's a massive, joint state agency created in 1921, with nearly 7,000 employees, that runs a network of airports, bridges, tunnel, and real estate, including the land where the world trade center once stood. and every time a truck passes over the george washington bridge, the port authority charges a hefty toll. over 100 bucks for the really big trucks. in 2012, the authority had a budget of $7 billion. some of the employees of the authority have salaries to match the budget. david wildstein was making $150,000 a year. his boss, bill brony, was making almost $300,000. that's nearly double what chris christie earns as governor. one former new york lawmaker described the agency structure as soviet-style bureaucracy. so it's no wonder chris christie vowed to reform the agency. >> it's clear the authority needs greater, on the ground oversight, to make sure that toll payer's interests are being protected. >> then in the summer of 2012, christie vetoed a bill to increase transparency. earl

in 2010, christie gave wildstein a job at the port authority. job paid $150,000 but had no job description. wildstein was christie's eyes and ears in the port authority. he's the author of the two most infamous e-mails. with the they are the children of buono voters" and "it will be a tough november for this little serbia." >> david wildstein deserves an ass kicking. there, i said it. >> david wildstein resigned. next up, bill baroni. during christie's first campaign, baroni served as a stand-in for incumbent jon corzine. he was appointed to the port authority for a job that paid $289,667 a year. 17 days before he resigned, bill baroni testified the lane closures were part of a traffic study. >> senator baroni testified there was a traffic study. >> good news for baroni, he was not under oath. he resigned on december 13th. next, bill stepien, christie's campaign manager in 2009 and 2013. one of his inner circle. known as the governor's enforcer. before this week, stepien was the nominee to be chairman of new jersey's republican party and adviser

david samson, the chairman of the port authority. in the released e-mails and text messages from david wildstein, he released text messages suggesting there was a meeting between chris christie and david samson one week before the "time for some traffic in ft. lee" e-mail went out back in august. he suggests that. again, so that's -- speculative and everything here, but there are a lot of interesting, you know, pieces and parts. >> nice redevelopment plan you got here, mayor. be ashamed if something happened to it. yeah, this is one of those things where learning about the players involved lets you learn what is important to them. learning what is important to them learns -- teaches you what motivates them which allows you to follow the chain of both decisions but also accountant. steve, i know i don't have to tell you to stay on this. obviously you will. >> thank you. >> we're going to post a link to the architects' renderings for this site at maddow blog tonight to check them out for yourself. it's quite remarkable when you realize

>> that was done by the deputy executive director of the port authority, mr. but he resigned after he went on november 25th to the assembly transportation committee, not under subpoena, nor under oath, went voluntarily and claimed that there was a traffic study and that this was an issue of fairness because somehow there were some kind of private roads from ft. lee to the george washington bridge. absolutely a madeup cover-up. and i've been saying it since then. so the fact that i've appeared before the port authority -- these are men who are supposedly responsible for the biggest infrastructures in our region for the safety, for the new building, for transportation projects, for hundreds of thousands of people and for hundreds of millions of dollars. and they sat there for four months silently. >> we know the state assembly has issued these 20 subpoenas. i assume you're going to start issuing your own subpoenas. to the same people or different people? >> hopefully we'll work in conjunction with one another, but we are going to start off by issuing subpoenas f

the port authority denied him -- denied paying for his legal defense. so ostensibly, that is what this letter is about. he is making a claim to the port authority that it was wrong denying paying for his legal defense and here is why. it's significant. there is a motivation for david wildstein to try to get the port authority to pay for his legal defense. but thing is a second way of reading this letter. and it goes hand in hand with a few things we've seen from wildstein and his lawyer over the last few months, and they are putting it out there not so subtly that hey, there is stuff that david wildstein nose there is stuff i know there is stuff that i can prove there is stuff that that might be use to feel the u.s. prosecutor, his lawyer said at the assembly a few weeks ago, basically, give me immunity. give my client immunity and he will be a lot more helpful to you. what he writes in this letter, he asserts as a fact that that e-mail from briblgt kelly, "time for some traffic in ft. lee", optimistic defenders of the governor would like to believe thi

this was his deputy chief of staff and people at the port authority that he had put there.e not just random people in a massive government. >> and the e-mails indicate, steve, that the former campaign manager, a key player, very close political ally was involved in that. he has now lost his option to be the republican state chairman. steve, you want to wrap it up for us here with your continuing exposition on new jersey politics? >> some people have made this observation. i know bridget kelly going back to 2002 when she was working for an assemblyman. i completely share the idea that's been put out there that it's very, very hard to imagine her acting alone, giving the order, being the sole person behind this. this really has the makings of a fall guy or fall woman scenario, whatever you want to call it, the singling out of bridget kelly. that's why the question is so interesting. but the other thing there is in terms of the news you just had from jonathan about the federal investigation, about the u.s. attorney from new jersey, it's just interesting that that u.s. attorney

this is not -- wildstein would have never been at the port authority. when this whole thing started to break, i was telling people wildstein is the one to watch here. a lot of people have a lot of loyalty to him. >> a character point about david wildstein that people need to keep in mind when they assess his creditability. this is a man who at 6:00 a.m. on september 13th went to the george washington bridge for what purpose? to make sure that the traffic was snarled. that is some sort of civic depravity. sort of sick public act. we need to keep that in mind when we assess the charges that he made today. >> as we said previous in this broadcast that we have reached out to governor christie's office for a response to this story, we have yet to hear back. if we do, we'll bring it to you here on msnbc. mr. wildstein contests the accuracy of various statements the governor made about him and he can prove the inaccuracy of some. thanks for your time tonight. we'll stay on this story as we have here on msnbc. we'll bring you more on the chris christie national

wildstein was employed by the port authority. they say their bylaws prohibit them from paying david wildstein's legal bills while this matter is sorted out. that may mean that david wildstein may find himself on the hook for a ton of money in terms of his legal defense. but we learned that about him on friday. also on friday the port authority said they were still deciding whether they were going to do that same thing to bill baroni. the former republican state senator bill baroni, who is new jersey governor chris christie's top appointee to the port authority. he was david's boss there. they say there's no answer yet on if bill baroni is also on the hook for paying for his own legal defense. that question of whether or not bill baroni is going to be cast aside by the port authority the way the port authority has cast aside david wildstein turns out to be a super interesting question and a super interesting problem overall for everybody else implicated not just in what happened on that bridge, but implicated in covering it up aft

asked port authority asked to call difficulty for mayor of fort lee. is it possible this had something to do with what happened later, and maybe this is where christie's aids got the idea if they wanted to exact political retribution on fort lee perhaps the fort authority would be an useful agency for them to try to do that. a couple of things. davids wildsteen another port authority official who took the fifth yesterday. all these documents related to his effort to take the fifth. when he appeared at the committee yesterday, that's when the committee put these documents into the record and released them this afternoon. and most of the documents show things like traffic patterns and maps and charts and graphs with traffic and how often the traffic is going through, and they all indicate that this agency, the port authority, and the people who were running the george washington bridge were facing enormous, enormous backlash to these efforts in september to take four lanes of traffic going from fort lee, and condense it into one. one of the e-mails is fr

so far these documents, this is inside port authority stuff. is that fair? this doesn't really reach into the christie administration, doesn't tell us anything about that one-hour meeting where allegedly everyone said that everything was fine? >> not yet. there's been no smoking gun, as you said at the top. i think we've seen the headline documents. i think what we saw on wednesday were the main documents out of that thing that put this in the christie administration with bridget kelly but so far i haven't heard of anything out there that would contradict anything that christie said in this press conference and anything else that would tie it to any other administration people higher than the ones that have been implicated into it. >> let me go to larry o'connor. i thought christie did a very good job, a very good and effective job yesterday but i don't think all of the buttonholes are closed yet. okay? one of the issues that i want to ask about tonight, i want to begin with you, why do you suppose his two guys on the port authority, okay, wildstein and what

that came from the port authority.untable to the people and more transparent. >> i remember when the port authority was buying very expensive art for the walls of their offices. this is nothing new. the agency is almost 100 years old and there have been complaints about this for 100 years and the problem with all of these -- all of these bi-state and it's not even -- sometimes they're just within one state, these independent agencies is they're responsible to no one except their bondholders. no one. not even really to the two governors. they're responsible to their bondholders, period. >> and i was going to say that i think one of our goals here with these committees is to make them responsible. >> i think we want to rein them in. right now i think they're pits of political patronage and we want to take a look at that issue. it may be that what's going on here with the bridge is a symptom and part it have is a symptom of what the problems are at the port authority. some could be a symptom of this culture within the adm

he's suing the port authority at the moment. and i will look into all of this stuff, but in the end, have i at times been angry with mayor phillip and disagreed with him? you bet. but i also went to his swearing in. they go up and down. and they move. so i'm sure there has been mob. in those relationships overtime. but not anything that i can explain with a specific question. bob?in >> reporter: [ inaudible ] >> sure, i mean, listen. most of you, i hope, are citizens of new jersey. i know, we don't need to point them out. but yes, of course it does. because the fact is i came out here and said something that was untrue. unwittingly, but i said something that was untrue. i think that you've all seen about me in the last four years in my deals with you, i deal with you directly and i say exactly what i think, and i think over time i've developed a reputation for telling you the truth as i see it. there could be disagreements, but the truth as i see it. yes, of course i would, because most, if not many -- many if not most of you ar

why is senator weinberg appearing in public meetings of the port authority. his two top lieutenants, the two people he's most responsible for, bill baroni, deputy executive director of the port authority and mr. wildstein, who is his boyhood friend, who was described as his eyes and ears at the port authority, they resign under pressure. he never asks them what did you know? who did you talk to in my office? why was this done? an e-mail was released from the executive director of the port authority, patrick foy, which said, not only were the processes at the port authority not followed, but in fact laws might have been broken here. 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, n

we are looking at the port authority. much bigger and took us into the governor's office, it's more than the port authority. it's about an attempt to conceal the abuse of power. it's making it wider and bring in assistance to help us. the issue has become more complicated. instead of looking at one agency and talking to people in the agency, we are talking potentially into the governor's office about people who work for the governor and other state agencies. we wanted to make sure we have the right kind of legal counsel, making sure we are not doing anything that would impinge only the investigation. >> this may take it to a new level you are to start on thursday. can tell us who is being considered and is there advice you distribute there or would it have anything to do with prosecutions that might emerge out of the investigation? >> we are a legislative body. so their role is not one of being a prosecutor. what we are looking at are law firms and individuals who have the type of experience who know about running investi

the port authority approves it. suddenly emerges as the best developer for this ad. >> let's look at this google map. this has gotten lost in the story. the prologue. the premayor version is this. unless you approve this development of the rockefeller group, the money won't start coming. but let's remember, the whole thing startted with the port authority paying for a study which concluded of the whole area, only three blocks were right for this kind of redevelopment. those three blocks that happened to be the three blocks owned by a rockefeller development group. forget everything. forget the allegations. just look at what we know on the record. >> and the port authority hired that person, the informant who did the study. i shouldn't say chose. but you're right. you have that inherent conflict. and sampson is sort of on all sides of that piece, which i think makes people look at that and look at him in a different light. >> and this is one of the people who has been subpoenaed. what is the game plan right now among