now i'm not sure how enlightening or satisfying the redacted information -- the redacted version will be. it appears that the information that was redacted relates to communications between the commission and the controller's office, which we previously determined were covered by this privilege as part of the investigative file. so i don't think miss herrick was making any additional determinations beyond what she had initially recommended, and that we had earlierly decided on october 22nd. i think she simply is enforcing that view and decision by redacting the portions that were by our prior determination. so that is my understanding of what happened here. >> okay. and that it was privileged as part of the ethics commission investigation or as part of the controller's investigation? >> well, i think we -- mr. givner, correct me if i'm wrong, i think we determined that both are. i think these emails may have been as part of our file, the commission's file. but it relates to both. >> okay. thank you. >> >> commissioner hayon? >> my question is in terms of the opinion that has been rent

, that is when we would suggest redacting. so there is a fair amount of judgment in that. and that goes to commissioner studley's point. >> we are not -- are we prohibited from releasing a document with no substance? >> i think when this document is produced, in my view it would fall on the end of the redactions that i would categorize as so severe as to be virtually encompassing the entire document. because miss herrick conducted this investigation for us, because i didn't find the information that was not redacted to be privileged, i think in this instance, production is appropriate. but i certainly do not fault the commission for not producing a document in this form, which the public can evaluate it once they see it, but i think they will find it to be not particularly useful as a publicly disclosed document. thank you, mr. st. croix. >> is there a motion with respect to whether we should find the failure to release these three documents in redacted form to be a willful violation of the sunshine ordinance? >> i move that w

now i'm not sure how enlightening or satisfying the redacted information -- the redacted version will be. it appears that the information that was redacted relates to communications between the commission and the controller's office, which we previously determined were covered by this privilege as part of the

adams' contacted information was redacted in that response. nothing else. no indication at all that they intended, had considered any possible response to you or any consideration of a possible response to you. you have to realize that redacting that contact information is the city hall equivalent of flipping somebody the bird. it's been established by the sunshine ordinance task force and courts in state that a person can't invoke somebody else's right to privacy by redacting their contact information and once it's waived, it can't be reinvoked again. so they have no grounds to redact that contact information and they know it. this would be the equivalent as if the finding of official misconduct against ross mirkarimi was responded with well we're friends with ross mirkarimi and we don't have to give you an answer and, in fact nobody said that. in this instance it's a badge of honor. they don't have it give you a reason. they haven't given you a reason. it's not official miscould be duct if it's only the sunshine ordinance. and that is the message. thank y

well i think we need to release the twenty redacted pieces of the joint congressional inquiry to find out this is something that the families have been fighting for for years and right now i believe representatives stephen lynch and walter jones every number is aleutian asking obama to release those twenty redacted pages. kristen brought wiser the one of the famous jersey girls obama to his face to release those twenty eight redacted pages he said he would look into it and get back to her. one thing about those twenty eight redacted peaches is they're just the tip of the iceberg the nine eleven commission has yet to release all of their documents and the documents that they have released are greatly redacted and how much did the government know beforehand about this operation. well there's a multitude of information out there that suggests this government knew what was coming one of the jersey girls talked to how they met whistleblowers in maryland people that the nine eleven commission refused to subpoena and they essentially had information that should this government do that day th

why are there redactions? this is not national security. why was it redacted? >> done by the attorney, done by the port authority, apparently. at the end of the committee meeting, there was a conversation between john and the attorney. we do expect to have better resolution on that because they need to come back and explain why information was redacted. >> you don't know why it was redacted. >> we don't know why it was redacted other than the fact they felt it wasn't useful or of import to the subpoena. when you can't tell who the exchanges were between, that's information we need to know. we know to know who else were on that distribution list. we need to know who specifically they were talking about when they made references to other people we believe were in the administration and close to chris christie. >> what is the next step, then, for this investigation? >> we will have to have a new subpoena issued. i believe that we will do that at the beginning of our new session. the new session for the legislature starts as of the 14th of january. next week. after

what else did david wildstein successfully redact all by himself? attorney for the new jersey state assembly's transportation me says the committee would like to know what those redactions are. the newly reconstituted investigatory body in the legislate her says they will pursue unredacted versions of all those documents that we all saw on friday. the committee was not humored, either, when mr. wildstein figuratively redacted his in-person testimony last week when he refused to answer most of the questions asked at the hearing. the committee voted to hold mr. wildstein in contempt. today, john wisniewski referred those to another. as we wait for more truth about the conspiracy to cause traffic problems in ft. lee, there's today a fresh problem for his old boss, governor christie. a problem that is not connected to the traffic jam scandal. what do you think? stay with us. [ female announcer ] when you're serious about fighting wrinkles, turn to roc® retinol correxion®. one week, fine lines appear to fade. one month, deep wrinkles look smoother. after

one thing about those twenty eight redacted peaches is there just the tip of the iceberg the nine eleven commission has yet to release all of their documents and the documents that they have released are greatly redacted and how much did the government know beforehand about this operation. well there's a multitude of information out there that suggests this government knew what was coming one of the jersey girls talked to how they met whistleblowers in maryland people that the nine eleven commission refused to subpoena and they essentially had information that should this government do that day the target and the type of attack. unbelievable it was that what does that say exactly i mean considering how we now know also that the hijackers were living under the roof of an f.b.i. informant john do you think it's possible that u.s. intelligence agencies weren't just turning a blind eye to the operation but intimately involved in it. you certainly do i recommend reading the book there is connecting the dots by kevin fenton which essentially makes the case that the cia was seemingly protecting

issues with the new contract, that is redacted.ith drafting a new rule with the contractors, and a fire the contractors and now they have new contractors and your report is issued to us that you are having problems with that, shouldn't we know that? problems with the new contractors? >> the oig is not asserting a privilege in this, and i understand our general counsel did consult with staff from the committee and discuss this matter in advance of this hearing. i know you couldn't tell me what the problems are and that was probably more of a rhetorical question, but my problem is this whole process is involving problems with the contractor, the initial contractor, and they fire him. now they have problems with the new contractor and redacting that information on a rule that was never put in place. it had not even had an opportunity to be fully implemented. is information the american people should have. i will simply say i have a real the acting ig because she is the one who apparently made that decision don'twill just say i think t

who is it that is so high up there that it needs redacting? this is not about national security implication ors anything that would be damaging to the ability of government to do its job. all of the questionses that he tried to answer today, this is a big looming question. who is this person that was redacted? >> obviously, this isn't going away for a couple reasons. one is you have a lot of democrats who aren't going to let this go away, in the sense that even democrats in new jersey who had a deal with chris christie for a long time, now they're going to try to incur favor with hillary clinton more than anything else. so they're going to keep this alive. second thing that you have to understand, this was not necessarily a chris christie scandal. this was a christie administration scandal. it could have been isolated people. they did lie to him, and he fired them. and i got to be honest with you, there will be a lot of people in the middle of the country, places like iowa, that will compare how did he do there with this crisis, how did presid

that wasn't you and your committee redacting those documents?>> most of the redactions in documents we received came from the documents supplied by mr. wildstein's attorney, there was some redactions in documents supplied by mr. beroni's attorney, of the 20 some you're talking about, i'm not sure where they came from, what's frustrating is, there's no explanation as to why they are redacted, are they claiming privilege? some type of exception to providing them under subpoena? we don't know, we have asked that question. >> with the 22 pages released, we have heard that hundreds of pages have been turned over. as someone trying to report this story, i get iffy reporting partially released documents. should we expect those pages will be released to the public? is there any reason to hold them back. and should we see these pages as representative of what you have learned? are we going to get the rest of it? >> there's thousands of pages of documents, and mr. wildstein's commission is 907 pages. what we want to do is have this hearing tomorrow, and p

or partially redacted. he inked out big swabs of conversations. the assembly does not like those redactions. and is seeking to get them unblacked out. the reason he redacted some things in his submission is because those things that he blacked out were outside the time frame the assembly asked about, or they were just not relevant to this matter, they were not relevant to the closure of those lanes on the bridge. that's why he blacked out what he blacked out. keeping that in mind, david wildstein did not black out, did not redact this exchange of text messages that mentioned david samson, which means, implicitly, david wildstein at least believes -- david wildstein holds that these messages were relevant to the closure of the lanes on the bridge. look. this is august fifth. 10:52 a.m., samson cannot do friday august 16th. why? he's away, the whole week? on a friday, the 16th. that's the only day that works for the governor. response. we will tell samson. august, one week before the governor's deputy chief o

it will not be redacted.e this thing is going to turn. >> this press conference went on for nearly two hours. he made a lot of statements about his lack of knowledge surrounding the scandal. if there's a smoking gun, what does this say about all of the media's positive assessments of the performance? >> the media you showed there was mostly fox. there are more smoking guns here than a john woo movie. what we've got here is a governor who says he is surrounded by these people who lie to him and creates this false world that he believes is real? it's "the truman show." christie can't pull off a closed bridge. this is all about the tea party. the chamber of commerce is going to be funding republican candidates against tea challenges. the only thing that matters to christie is do these revelations hurt him or help him with the tea party voters? tea party guys won't be that outraged by a big bully who made life tougher for new yorkers. >> what does christie face legally if he wasn't telling the truth? >> at this p

there are names that were redacted from the test in the e-mails.hink any reasonable person would reach the conclusion that there's more to come or more stuff to find out about. >> when you read that e-mail from bridget kelly to the port authority saying we need to have a traffic problem for fort lee and the response was got it. when i read that it sounded as if the person on the other end of that knew instantly what that meant. and i'm not sure why the person on the other end of it would know instantly what that meant unless there were previous discussions about it. >> absolutely. and when you say "got it" you don't just come up with a statement like that out of the clear blue without something transpiring or something that precedes it. i agree with you 100%. that "got it" was a ratification or confirmation that everything that previously transpired was acceptable. i know my instructions and i'm going to move on them. >> does it seem odd to you that the governor had been told that there was a traffic study being done, and even though the story cont

and redacted it. >> i wanted to say redacted on air. >> retracted. >> redacted.s different things. redacted is what you do -- >> black out things. >> redonkulous. very good. >> final trade time. relocate. >>> gm, we talked about it earlier. increase share buybacks. i like it. >> you know, dan's smart board trick there told me i should buy vix. but i don't like the etf. >> karen? >> of the big banks, citi i think has the most upside. >> guy? >> might have gotten right on a capitulation. a nice day today. i think there's room on the upside. >> all right. i'm melissa lee. thanks for watching. see you tomorrow at 5:00 for "fast money." "mad money" has a huge lineup. that's coming up right now. >>> my mission is simple. to make you money. i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere. i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now. hey, i'm cramer! welcome to "mad money." welcome to cramerica. my job not only to entertain, but to teach. call me at 1-800-743-cnbc. maybe george michael was right. when he sang

too. >> the sender was redacted.ols the redactions and he said it was the lawyer for donald wildstein. >> david wildstein. even before they were relieved we were getting rumblings as they were getting the documents produced via the subpoena they were coming in with a lot of redactions and they were grilling wildstein about that when he is scheduled today to testify in trenton, what did you black out here and what are you not telling us? >> why would you redact who one of the senders was? >> >> take a guess. >> i'm not even going to speculate. i will just say whoever said that about children of buono voters is in trouble. >> yeah. the quote really kind of speaks for itself. the other thing about the way they were redacted is in some of those exchanges we are seeing little bits of exchange and then giant sections that are removed. one thing i noticed looking through the text which wildstein and bill veroni who had to resign from the port authority they are laying out the connection to bridget kelly not only in the e-ma

as you pointed out, he wouldn't even say whether these are redactions or not.ooking at them on the paper, he wouldn't say if they're there. if these people keep stonewalling, what are the people investigating this case going to get out of it? how are they going to get to the governor? >> right, chris. i'm interested to go back to the e-mails. it's the actions that took place in the beginning of september. i wrote a letter to baroni on september 13th. he never answered it. which leads me to think there is more to this than meets the eye. if we believe that the deputy official within the governor's office, bridget is the one who concocted this whole thing, come on, we're only making more jokes. so he is not the victim. the people in ft. lee are the victim. it's in my district. i'm going to make sure that i'm involved. i kept my mouth closed now for a few months. now it's time for me to step forward. because we want to see justice. we want to make sure this never happens again. i mean, the port authority should be designed to try to figure out how we can lower tol

is the reason they redacted that memo is because somebody is on. already getting nervous and they would rather not have that person talked to this this is going to continue to spin out of control and we're going to see a lot of people come forward and say you know what this was wrong i don't want to be a part of it and there's no way to keep this genie in the bottle tom pap while wildstein took the fifth over and over and over again today basically never testified at all and as a consequence of that the new jersey assembly held him in the contempt of congress does that have any understanding is that doesn't have any place you know the congress doesn't have police powers that is a very different than being in contempt of court what's next for i think the i think what you're going to see this guy has a lot of enemies he has earned these enemies legitimately he this guy's name chris christie or david chris christie chris christie is a blowhard bully he's created a lot of enemies in his career these enemies now see pay dirt so what you're going to see

there are names that were redacted from the test in the e-mails.n would reach the conclusion that there's more to come or more stuff to find out about. >> when you read that e-mail from bridget kelly to the port authority saying we need to have a traffic problem for fort lee and the response was got it. when i read that it sounded as if the person on the other end of that knew instantly what that meant. and i'm not sure why the person on the other end of it would know instantly what that meant unless there were previous discussions about it. >> absolutely. and when you say "got it" you don't just come up with a statement like that out of the clear blue without something transpiring or something that precedes it. i agree with you 100%. that "got it" was a ratification or confirmation that everything that previously transpired was acceptable. i know my instructions and i'm going to move on them. >> does it seem odd to you that the governor had been told that there was a traffic study being done, and even though the story continued to bubble up it see

again, i mentioned earlier that some documents were redacted and had some clues as to who else in thenor's office may have been involved. he really does have until monday so there is time. next week i think is going to be very big. >> kate zernike, thank you. dana, you have one more point? >> yes. the whole beginning of this letter, the main purpose of this letter is writing to the port authority saying that they want his legal fees paid. so this is hardball that they are playing here and it's not just a letter saying, hey, dangling saying we have something on chris christie. they are trying to get something for wildstein, which is his legal fees paid for. >> and the theme of the letter is, look at all of the corruption that went on at the port authority and those people are being counselled by the port authority. those people have worries yet you're not paying my legal fees. this letter is about their request for legal fees and he's alleging that there was a lot of bad activity here. >> they are not cheap. chris, thanks to you as well. we're going to continue to stay on top of this s

much of that information has come over redacted. i think a very important step that the governor can take today is demand as he's doing today an internal investigation is to require that that information be presented with complete transparency so we know who knew what and when they knew it. >> kelly, is and changed man? will they give out information? how big of a story is this? >> he's changed in terms of the way that some people in the public have perceived him but he's always been the honest and ethical guy that you've seen on display today and the contrite and deeply personal hurt at the betrayal of the public and of the governor, him being lied to directly, that was all on display. let me add to that, with very no notes, no net, a lot of republicans want to run against him in 2016 are not capable of that. hillary clinton is not capable of that. we certainly can't get an answer from her on benghazi let alone what her aides have done but i think what you will see now is this earnest side of chris christie. >> is this a burning bu

wildstein forwarded the plea to someone whose name has been redacted in these e-mails, in fact. is it wrong that i am smiling, the person asked. no, wildstein replied. >> stephen: no, it's not wrong to be smiling, it's wrong to have saved the text about you smiling. (laughter) >> stephen: well, nation, this morning in a triumphant 108 minute someone else-a-culpa, christie faced these allegations head on with a press conference that jamd the airways with a 32 denial pileup. >> i was blindsided yesterday morning. i was done with my workout yesterday morning-- (laughter) >> and i got a call from my communications director at about 8:50, 8:55. informing me of this story that had just broken on the web site. that was the first time i knew about this. this morning i terminated the employment of bridgeet kelly, effective immediately. i terminated her employment because she lied to me. >> stephen: in retrospect he probably should have suspected this traffic scandal was linked to bridge-it kelly. (laughter) >> stephen: and if i were him i would keep my eye on communications director lane

it is unclear who redacted these names. >> right. in the request the bergen record had it, it was a decision of someone in the administration -- and i guess they could have appeal that as well, the reduction of the names, but they felt it was important to get the information out at this time. the george washington bridge is a huge -- >> it is the most trafficed bridge in the world. >> millions of people use this on a daily basis. folks know there are traffic jams on the bridge anyway, but to have a tie up in a major town in new jersey this way and to create all of these problems -- the mayor has demanded a reimbursement from the state and an apology, demanded reimbursement for the public safety people that had to work so much overtime during those four days. this will continue as an issue and not only new jersey politics, but national politics, for several days and weeks. >> let's remember what was said at the time, there was some kind of traffic study going on. but no emergency personnel, no police, no one was told about this in for

they were heavily redacted, this release of heavily redacted documents got a lot out there.-mails from bridget kelly, from regina egea you could piece these together so maybe the documents alone are enough? >> even the redaction is a ploy. it's part of a game. you can negotiate to unredact some things but if you give it the first time unredacted you can't then say, no, i want to cross that out. so that's a bargaining chip with wildstein, too. he has a very good lawyer. they know what they're doing. >> who else should -- of those -- the thing about wildstein, to take a step back, i felt like his relationship with christie has been misportrayed in the press a little bit. >> i agree. >> they grew up in the same town. they're not that close. there's not this longtime, like he wants to protect chris christie. i can see david wildstein as someone who would cut a deal and feel he's not giving up his best friend or something like that. are there other names in the mix who fit that criteria? >> in light of the new revelations with the mayor of hoboken, mr. samson does come in. when w

i want to know what's in those redacted e-mails. what names are in those redacted e-mails? and we are not going to rest until we get the truth, and it's not going to benefit each party, because the people are going to say, there they go again. if you want to know something, people are right, as usual. >> new jersey congressman bill pascrell. great to have you on the program. thank you. >> pleasure to be with you. >> there are these other outstanding questions we've been talking about. he said he asked mr. baroni what happened here. it does raise the question, after two people at the port authority resigned, wouldn't you as governor start asking questions? >> willful ignorance keeps coming back to me as a motivation for christie. but the other thing i think just to keep in mind here is we may be at a moment when the political and media culture in new jersey is changing in a way it hasn't since the moment chris christie was inaugurated. >> how? >> chris christie has been the most intimidating governor that new jersey has had, that new jersey politicians have had to deal with

copies obtained through freedom of information act requests are heavily redacted. but attorney jim calle who's represents agents accused of misconduct, including cross-border shootings says there's nothing to hide. >> in the vast majority of the cases it is very clear cut in the sense of there is a deadly force threat made against an agent and the agent has to resort to the use of deadly force in response. border patrol agents are subject to at least 5 levels of scrutiny every time they pull the trigger. their conduct is so scrubbed by the time two years and three years past which is sometimes the length of time it takes for these investigations to wrap up. because it takes so long, people think the process is corrupt. they think that agents don't have no accountability for their use of deadly force. people start to speculate look, border patrol, they can pull a gun and shoot and kill people and it doesn't matter. >> but former border patrol agent ephraim cruz says a lack of accountability is actually the crux of the problem. he was an agent for almost 10 years in

those were redacted documents, redacted by the person who turned them over.se were released with lots of interesting things in it. they're going now after his campaign and the republican party of new jersey. you think those people in those two entities carefully wrote e-mails thinking what if my e-mail showed up on nbc news or msnbc or the front page of the "new york times"? there is going to be lots of e-mails. even if they don't lead to indictments, even if they don't cause political damage directly to chris christie, i think there are going to be lots of communications that are going to be very, very tough for him to deal with. >> if you can't -- don't say it, grunt it. now it's going to be don't e-mail it, don't say it, grunt it. because when you might not get convicted. thank you, mark halperin and you eugene robinson. >>> it's been a big week for the far right fringe. we'll catch up with some of the crazy things they've said. this is "hardball," the place for politics. natural gas. ♪ more than ever before, america's electricity is generated by it. exxon