mark sokolich was number 45 of 100. number 45 on the christie administration's list of 100 mayors that were important to them. 45th in importance. in terms of the people who governor christie thought he needed to sign off on him in order to get him re-elected by the margin he wanted. that's kind of interesting, right? the theory that has been posited over and over again, including the front-page story in "the new york times," the theory as to why lanes on the busiest lanes in the world were shut down by members of governor christie's inner circle. the theory is it was about political retribution against that mayor, political retribution against mayor mark sokolich in ft. lee for him refusing to endorse chris christie for re-election. seriously, though? think about that for a second. close down access to the world's busiest bridge for number 45 on your list? you gridlock a town for five days for a guy who's only number 45 on your list of priorities? seriously? what does that mean they did if number 35 failed to endorse t

mayor sokolich, of course, the mayor of ft. lee, new jersey. bridget kelly, the night before she sent that e-mail, called a campaign staffer and asked whether mayor sokolich of ft. lee was going to endorse governor christie. the staffer responded that the mayor was not going to endorse governor christie. kelly responded in some more substance that that was all she needed to know. then 12 hours later, she sent that e-mail, "time for some traffic problems in ft. lee." so that kind of makes it seem like, hmm, maybe it was the endorsement issue. maybe it was that lack of an endorsement from the mayor of ft. lee that was the impetus for this whole thing. she called to check to see whether or not he was endorsing chris christie. she heard no. all right. that's all i need to know. 12 hours later, she orders time for some traffic problems in his town. that's new detail. now, as soon as they give us that detail, rather inexplicably, the new report from christie's lawyers, they give us that crucial new piece of information then they conclude this. look.

repeat that with sokolich. didn't talk to them, will talk to the u.s. attorney. repeat that with all the main players in the case. wildstein is openly asking for a deal with the u.s. attorney. that's where the ball game really is. the important thing to keep in mind. this is the christie defense. it may or may not be credible. >> at times it looks like it's masquerading as an independent inquiry. i want to put up a picture of dawn zimmer that appears in the report that gives people a flavor. they have her yawning then they basically write someone who was threatened, a person does not normally yawn when threatened, coerced or spoken to improperly. that in the law what we would often call conjecture. because they found a photo of her yawning, she couldn't have been threatened during that interaction. i thought that was so weird, it made them look not credible. there are, as well, some very interesting pieces of evidence in here. a lot to unpack. steve kornacki, catch more of your reporting on this on "up" weekends at 8:00 a.m. eastern on msnbc and paul butler from

we don't know yet why he targeted fort lee and mayor sokolich.ut we can tell from the nature of the communications that there was some ulterior motive behind what they did. but we can also look at the evidence and see that it is not established that, that ulterior motive was because mayor sokolich did not endorse the governor. in fact, mayor sokolich, it was known within the campaign and the governor's office he was not intended to endorse as early as march 2013, yet he continued by his own account to have a good relationship with the governor's office. he found it incomprehensible after the lane closures that it could be true, that it was some form of political retaliation. and, in fact, we saw hardcopy evidence during the several months afterwards that he continued to have a good relationship and even was on a list of mayors being considered for honorary appointments months after he already let the campaign and the governor's office know he wasn't likely to be in a position to endorse. >> what did you find with respect to wants in, that he spok

lee, she reconfirmed that mayor sokolich would not endorsing governor christie.ut she cared and reconfirmed on august 12th. they are strongly suggesting that's the link. >> and saying she destroyed incriminating documents. >> or attempted to. one of her subordinates in this unit, the iga, one of her subordinates when she was first -- this report claims when she was first asked questions by the governor's lawyer, chief counsel, she got nervous and sent apparently called or sent an e-mail saying, please delete this but didn't delete it. >> the other big headline is the mayor of hoboken, according, again, to the report, they have evidence via e-mail that dawn zimmer misrepresented what she said happened when she said on your show that essentially she was being punished and not giving the sandy -- the hurricane sandy recovery money that her city was supposed to receive. >> i read through that part more closely than anything so far. there are a couple of claims they are making there. look, they are -- one thing they are leaning on is it what we heard from christie's d

they couldn't get the most crucial players because they didn't talk to bridget kelly and mayor sokolich or dawn zimmer. i'm about halfway through and it may -- it may be that everything in this report is true, but the thing to keep in mind, thgs not the definitive report on this. this is the u.s. attorney is looking into this. this is essentially -- everything in here is what they'll be telling the u.s. attorney. >> and it is a preemptive shot coming from the taxpayers and just to clarify, it was not direct conversation between david wildstein and the governor himself, but it was to the governor's office, is that the clarification as you go through all of these? >> i don't have the page in front of me. i've got 300 plus right here, but i'm almost -- i may have read it wrong but i'm almost sure i read -- wildstein had a conversation with michael, christie's spokesman and in this conversation, well after the closures and he basically tried to implicate others, bill stepien, who is christie's political director, since distances himself. >> since removed. >> and claiming he had a conversati

he talks to sokolich about the closures and then cold christina renna and she immediately fires off thisning how he got through to bridget kelly. these are people in the governor's office. you have to believe this was an operation limited to knowledge of the nature of this was limited to like those three people in the governor's office and no one else in this governor's office had an inkling of it or if they can did no one told the governor that they could be operating out of his office like that and he wouldn't know. >> the thing is a white board exists, which lists the various indicators there are that people in the governor's office knew about this and that the problem with the press conference is that you have to believe there are a lot of coincidences and there are a lot of things. you have to believe there are a lot of coincidences and that the office has managed a very sort of loose way to buy into the story that christie simply didn't know about this especially when we know from that initial e-mails that week giving sokolich radio silence that the chain of custody of that questio

same day, a key christie official received an e-mail with the subject line "phone call fort lee sokolich regarding urgent matter of safety in fort lee." this was not a common occurrence. and today's report leaves us with more questions than answers. joining me now are steve kornacki and krystal ball. thank you both for coming on the show tonight. >> thanks for having us, rev. >> so steve, christie was apparently told about the lane closures while they were happening but doesn't remember it. your reaction. >> what i'm most interested in is how they deal with it in this report. because the way i've read this thing is everything that is in this report maybe we will find out when the u.s. attorney weighs in on this, when the legislative committee weighs in on this. many will find out that everything in here is true. but the way the report is written it editorializes. it uses loaded language. it's with its language constantly giving the benefit of the doubt to christie. you're talking about the claim, wildstein's claim that he talked to christie on september 11th about it. this is how the rep

to in some way target mayor sokolich in fort lee. we are not able to answer every question today. we are not able to answer what that ulterior motive was, but we can say that the evidence does not establish that that ulterior motive was to target mayor sokolich because he did not endorse or governor christie for reelection. in fact, there substantial contrary evidence. in fact, the evidence shows that both the governor's office and the christie campaign knew as early as march 2013 that mayor sokolich would not be endorsing the governor for reelection. yet by his own account he continuecontinue to have good rs with the christie administration, and, indeed, was on a list of mayors being considered for honorary appointments by the governor as recently as may. 2013. we further find that when the governor became aware that bridget kelly and his office had been involved in the decision to close these lanes, he took appropriate action. he fired bridget kelly, and then he commissioned this investigation and made a public commitment early on before our investigation has progressed beyond i

these were democratic mayors they wanted to endorse the governor, including fort lee mayor mark sokolich>> right, right. >> and then this july conversation where christie's campaign manager bill stepien writes to mike dehaim, quote, we're approaching a point in time where we have the so what it's going to be conversation with hoboken mayor dawn zimmer and jersey city mayor steve fulp. the argument that there was no evidence that the governor was after the marry or ready to push him there is there now. we have it. >> randy mastro has said with this report they're draw nothing conclusions as to why mark sokolich, the mayor of fort lee was argued the. but democrats have talked to today, you know, they've certainly made note of that target list. and i think this is something that they're going to be pursuing and questioning if and when they start calling in people to testify and take testimony. why was it developed and what role does it have in fort lee. >> you know, kendall, it took decades for those of us who dug up a lot of this stuff in the archives to find out richard nixon's role in wa

this governor of new jersey has no knowledge of his office's relationship with the fort lee mayor sokolich, that he has no knowledge on what might motive this kind of pushing around or punishing? this is the part that is hard, the context part, whether he knew about the bridge closing prank or not, he seems to be playing a much riskier argument here. i don't know nothing, the sergeant schultz argument from "hogan's heroes." that seems to be something hard to believe. your thoughts. >> again, it's inconceivable that it was just bridget kelly and wildstein, you know, playing traffic jams or playing with the traffic on the bridge without any knowledge, without anyone know that. it's inconceivable to me. again, this exhaustive report shows nothing on who was to blame and why they did it. and, again, the governor has promised to do a thorough investigation. i don't believe that, you know, this investigation is over. it's far from over. there is no -- there are no answers to the questions. we will continue to raise the questions. and the investigation is far from over. the report was done obviou

or even mark sokolich, mayor of ft.ersey, who reportedly was the target of the lane closure scheme in the first place. didn't talk to any of those folks. still, it's being described as comprehensive and exhaustive. according to anonymous leaks in today's "new york times" it's described as totally exonerating the governor. after being paid millions of new jersey taxpayer dollars in a contract awarded by the governor. joining us, steve kornacki, host of "up with steve kornacki" weekends on msnbc. thanks very much for being here. >> you're welcome. >> nobody expected governor christie's internal review to do anything other than exonerate him, i think. >> yeah. >> is there anything that we have learned about this review about its importance or relevant context that we didn't know before? >> i don't think so. we didn't learn when exactly it's coming out which would be a useful piece of information. they've been saying for a while now, soon, and the new report today says, soon. we didn't even learn that. i think the two relev

closures, on the first day of closures, bill barone received this e-mail eye phone call, mayor sokoli sokolich knew that the whole world would have e-mails and letters to him, before he knew all that was going to become public but after he had been alerted to exactly what happened on that bridge, he described thusly what happened to ft. lee. >> at all times during the week of the study the port authority police department monitored traffic on the george washington bridge. they were alert for any emergency vehicles in the area and prepared too further alter traffic patterns in the event of an emergency. >> not true. we now have people's voices on those 911 calls proving, again, that that is not true. and he was not the only chris christie ally advancing that untrue story about how nothing that happened on the bridge that week affected public safety. the head of the police union and close ally of governor chris christie, he defended the lane closures, quote, was there any ambulance delay? no police service delay? no. yes, actually. there were delays as a result of that fake traffic study, which

she actually tried to have a -- one-e mail exchange we have -- she had with an aide about mayor sokolich deleted. she asked the aide to delete the e-mail at the time that the governor's office, his chief of staff, dowd, was asking to see any e-mails they might have that might be relevant to this, bridget kelly asked the aide to delete it. the aide kept a copy, turned it over. that's how we saw it for the first time. but, look, we haven't heard from bridget kelly. we haven't heard from david wildstein. oddly, this report which was commissioned by the governor, we don't see a transcript or really any details of what governor christie himself told his own investigators. i thought that was a quite a significant omission. there's very few if any direct quotes from governor christie about what he recalls here. in fact, in that one exchange with wildstein in which wildstein says he told the governor something about a traffic study or a traffic issue when they met on september 11th, the report quotes kevin o'dowd, the chief of staff, saying the governor does not recall the conversation. it doesn

approval in the governor's office, and that they had an alterior motive to some way target mayor sokolich. >> they released their 345-page report and i want to demonstrate for you what kind of light reading this is. it is thick, obviously we have read all of it in detail already -- we have not but we have been combing through it. they say they reviewed more than 250,000 documents and interviewed more than 70 witnesses. so this is by all accounts a thorough job and disclosed four people people were left out of the review. several key witnesses have refused to cooperate with our investigation or asserted their rate against self-incrimination and some questioned the impartiality of the report since it was by a law firm chosen by chris christie himself and the maestro behind the report is randy mastro raising a lot of questions as well. this isn't the last word on the subject. there's already an investigation underway by the new jersey legislature and federal investigation that is ongoing. so what is this all mean for chris christie and new jersey? let's go to steve kornacki, who has been on

mark sokolich, the mayor of ft. lee. former christie campaign manager bill stepien. christie appointee at the port authority, david wildstein, and bridget kelly, the former aide who ordered the traffic problems in ft. lee. all refuse to talk to gibson, d dunn. here's what we currently know. the firm that chris christie hired to investigate his own administration cleared his administration of any wrongdoing. here's what we currently don't know. why traffic problems in ft. lee were ordered in the first place. joining me now, paul butler, professor of law at georgetown university law center. former federal prosecutor with the u.s. doj where he specialized if public corruption. all right. you're a former prosecutor. chris christie, former prosecutor. you're investigating someone. they come to you, say, hey, don't worry about it. i hired a law firm. i paid them to investigate me. here's the report. turns out i'm all clear. what do you do with that? >> actually, chris, prosecutors don't have a whole lot of experience with these kinds of reports because most people who are

it seems to me this may have nothing to do with whether sokolich, the mayor of fort lee was or was not going to endorse the mayor for reelection. it gets to the question why would you want to stop traffic for a month unless you're trying to interfere or trying to squeeze somebody with regard to an economic plan there. something that a month of delays would send a message to developers, we can't develop, but this is a new traffic pattern. it seems to be just bigger than screwing a guy because he wouldn't back you for an election. it seems they're going for the port authority for investigation. this may be more economic and bigger. your thoughts right now thinking story has always seemed that way. it doesn't really make sense that it would be about an endorsement. people wouldn't put themselves in this kind of legal jeopardy if it was just about endorsement. i think the question christie has to be asking himself, what do these people write down? maybe christie has a habit of not producing documents that could later be subpoenaed, but does his staff know enough, are they good enough to fo

this governor of new jersey has no knowledge of his office's relationship with the fort lee mayor sokolich, that he has no knowledge on what might motive this kind of pushing around or punishing? this is the part that is hard, the context part, whether he knew about the bridge closing prank or not, he seems to be playing a much riskier argument here. i don't know nothing, the sergeant schultz argument from hogan's heroes. that seems to be something hard to believe. your thoughts. >> again, it's inconceivable that it was just bridget kelly and wildstein, you know, playing traffic jams or playing with the traffic on the bridge without any knowledge, without anyone know that. it's inconceivable to me. again, this exhaustive report shows nothing on who was to blame and why they did it. and, again, the governor has promised to do a thorough investigation. i don't believe that, you know, this investigation is over. it's far from over. there is no -- there are no answers to the questions. we will continue to raise the questions. and the investigation is far from over. the report was done obviousl

she cuts off the trail trichet only gives him the e-mail that says sokolich complained that week which by her account -- it was not that significant at the time. she said she did not call so here it is. having cut off a master collect to not keep the e-mail where she said "good." you asked me as a logical person -- i'm just a lawyer. i'm just an investigator but you asked me. what i take from that, i take somebody who did wrong is trying to cover up from the chief of staff and the governor. last question -- >> what about the sampson inference? >> since the information we any prioras denied knowledge and there was no evidence in the port authority documents that you are able to see sampson having probert -- having prior knowledge, it was not going to be inference to be asked about his -- about him. this relates to issues unrelated to the scope of our investigation but am happy to answer them in more detail later. >> you said that there is no text or e-mail that the governor knew about the closure. the governor did not have a conversation with bridget kelly? can you corroborate? did you

shows that both the governor's office and the christie campaign was early as march 2013 that mayor sokolich would not be endorsing the governor for re-election yet by his own account he continued to have good relations with the christie administration and indeed was on a list of mayors being considered for honorary appointments by the governor as recently as may 2013. we further find that when the governor became aware that richard kelly in his office had been involved in the decision to close these lanes he took appropriate action. he fired richard kelly and then he commissioned this investigation and made a public commitment early on before our investigation had progressed beyond this initial stages, that he was going to release their findings to the public before he could have known what they would need and what our recommendations would be. he directed us on that day we were retained which was the first time i ever met governor christie, to find out what the facts are whatever they may be to report them back to the governor's office and to make recommendations as we saw fit to address t