the port authority. he was appointed to that job by chris christie. david samson was furious and outspoken about that april 2011 debacle, and he lambasted the executive director of the port authority for having caused that traffic jam on that bridge 2 1/2 years ago. when the port authority caused this even bigger traffic jam for four straight days, the same chairman, david samson, didn't say beep. no public comment on the issue. no apology. no telling the press it was unthinkable, nothing. not a word. why is that? in contrast to the outer bridge backup in 2011 where david samson raked the director over the coals for public in that backup, here's what we know about what david samson did about the backup this past september in ft. lee. he e-mailed the vice chairman of the port authority after an article about the backup came out in the "wall street journal." david samson's complaint was the executive director of the port authority had talked about it. the article, "confirms evidence of pat foye being the leak, stirring up trouble." "in this case, he's pl

scandal goes and how close the scandal gets to chris christie. and on the day christie apologized and said he was humiliated and called his deputy chief of staff stupid and the other people involved were stupid and deceitful and showed poor judgment. on that day, when everyone has seen the david samson is helping us to retaliate e-mail, he took a different tone when talking about him. >> i think general samson put out a statement yesterday that he had no knowledge of this i interviewed him yesterday. i am convinced that he had no knowledge of this, i sat and met for two hours yesterday with mr. samson, general samson, and again, i'm confident he had no knowledge of this, based on our conversations, and his review of his information. >> something along the lines of, we're taking appropriate action against the new york side, and samson is working with us. >> yeah, it was something. i asked general samson about that, it said something to that effect. i don't know what it was. he said he has no idea what it's referring to. >> that's that, settled, h

the close yish. so far, he has not been fired. if chrisvive this scandal, he needs david samson not to be involved in any of this in anyway. and the documents we got today don't make that look likely. this entire cast of characters will be making appearances when we discuss bridgegate more after this. yeah. everybody knows that. did you know there is an oldest trick in the book? >> zblrt. >> all right. so remember the biggest mystery around the bridgegate scandal, who of chris christie's cronies were trying to screw over and why? the original theory is it was retribution for the ft. lee mayor for refusing to endorse christie. here's the thing, if there is one item that chris christie and the ft. lee mayor both agree on is that it was never a big push to give the endorsement in the first place and all the intrigue and coverup and political damage does seem a little much for a democratic mayor of 35,000 n. response to this story by colleague rachel maddow. she was involved in a brutal conflict over the state supreme court. now, a man who kno

and there are important differences between the two. did chris christie really sit in that room and look into the eyes of bridget kelly and say to her and everyone in that room, look into their eyes and say if any of you have any information about this that i don't know, you need to tell me now. the second time he told that story, that's how he told it. and that is, of course, what chris christie should have done with every person on his senior staff. and he should have closed in on them one-on-one and used his own judgment as a former prosecutor, his own judgment as an evaluator of truth to try to get that truth out of his staff one-on-one, eye to eye. and he sounds like he did it in the second version. he pretends he did it in the second version. in the first version he doesn't say he did that at all. but it sound like the way to do it, right? even chris christie thinks it's a good idea to do that. now. >> i have and will continue to, started yesterday, to once again now have personal one-on-one discussions myself with the remaining members of

deputy chief of staff before the chief of staff. he's been chrisistie's closest aide for a long time running day-to-day operations of the administration including during the time that the deputy chief of staff seems to have ordered the shut dwoown of trafc in ft. lee, new jersey, as a way of settling some as yet poorly understood political vendetta. chris christie's chief of staff is the man governor christi says he turned to when he first started asking his staff questions about the bridge scandal. governor christie says he relied on his chief counsel and on mr. odowd, the chief of staff, to talk to everybody else. to get anybody else on his staff who knew anything about the bridge shutdown to fess up. now that he has been nominated to be the next attorney general for the state, kevin odowd may be in the position to ask his former colleagues, once again, what they knew about the manufactured traffic jam in ft. lee, because if he is confirmed as attorney general, he might find himself running a criminal investigation into this whole affair. and acc

one, that is when chris christie gets elected, gets sworn in. the end of 2010 is when chris christie dominates david samson to be chairman of the port authority. and then look what happens to his law firm's lobbying business once he becomes chairman of the port authority. yeah. 2011 looks great, 2012 still looking pretty good. it will be interesting to see when those numbers come out for 2013. david samson is a former attorney general of the state of new jersey. he is very, very, very well connected in that state. not in a particularly partisan way, none of this story is particularly partisan. there's people from both parties and no parties on all sides of this. by all accounts david samson is well respected in the state. but he is also the top chris christie related official, ally or appointee in this scandal who is most implicated in this bridge disaster and more who has not yet resigned or been fired or been blamed in any way. david samson is cast in the worst light of anyone who is still standing this far into this scandal. and so far new jersey

the guy's counsel. this really what chris wants me to do? because this may be against the law. >> chris, here is the thing. she sent that at 7:34 a.m. she got a response back at 7:35 a.m. there was no phone call. >> so you think it was a cue, that they had set up ahead of time? >> i said on your program about a month and a half ago that let's just wait to see what the governor knew and when he knew it. and right now today i think this press conference opens up the door for more questions. and it really was i think short term. it gives him some room, not a lot. because you've got folks pleading the fifth. you've got folks still possibly revealing stuff. so this is going to be a story for a while. >> i'm sorry, did you buy the chris christie he presented today? first of all, he is humble. he should have been humble. he is apologizing to everybody on the planet. for what i'm not sure because he said he was screwed by his own staff people. i was wondering what he apologized. he said bridget did the whole thing on him. and wildstein and the other

the media. but so much, chris. >> let's talk about you and the media. you're from jersey. s smell like jersey? does it smell like chris christie? do you smell the fact that there is somebody going to testify like a john dean in a couple of weeks? i'm betting and hoping for bridget kelly to talk about what it really was like working for big guy and what the orders were and the signals were and the atmosphere was. >> right. >> and that's why she had this conversation. "time for traffic problems in ft. lee", as if she had been having this conversation for months. your thoughts. >> well, i don't think they'll ever find a smoking ham, you know, to attribute to chris christie directly. i think he is too clever for that. that's not how thugs work. the whole reason that you hire someone like bridget kelly is to carry out orders like this that you don't actually give. remember when benedict was the god's rottweiler or the pope's rottweiler they called him before he got the pope job? well, she is blob's rottweiler, okay? she knows to do this without actually having to be told. it's t

not the kind of appetite that chris christie has. talk to democrats who are more cynical, they say, if this goes to the u.s. attorney, not sure how much is going to come out of it. you have people who predate the current u.s. attorney and were there when chris christie was there. >> so basically if the u.s. attorney is complicated or unlikely to get involved -- a lot of people say it would be easier to bring state charges, instead of federal. although federal seems to be the obvious choice here. if it's not the u.s. attorney, that makes the legislature and their investigation more important and if it has a structural weakness that could be exploited, that could -- >> they can exploit, if they can tie it up in court, maybe the u.s. attorney is forced to come in and take the case. if the u.s. attorney takes the case, it would shut down the legislative panels. >> the number of subpoenas, not the names was released today. the bergen record is reporting bridget anne kelly, bill stepien are among the individuals who are subpoenaed. we know

he screwed up the race to the top application. chris christie said the number one rule of this administration is you don't lie to the governor. now bret schundler admitted that he and his teamed a screwed up the race to the top application, admitted he deserved to go, but did not like being called a liar. what happened a week later? bret schundler had documents, he had e-mails, he has records. he could prove that when chris christie called him a liar, he had not been a liar. chris christie and his administration had known bret schundler had talked to them. and i cannot help but think of them right now. because chris christie confidently got up there three years ago with all the cameras rolling and called him a liar, even though there was evidence out there that came back to haunt there. there is a precedent. >> now, you know wildstein a bit, and i heard your story you knee him indirectly because he ran your website. i'm watching this guy. i'm really try to empathize with people in trouble politically. i'm looking at this guy. he obvious

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 tolls. not keep on increasing them. you need a wheelbarrow of money to go over the george washington bridge. that's the absurdity, while these guys say they're reforming the place, it's getting worse. >> yeah, and four people, in

or maybe, maybe you just have chris christie not telling the truth. ust not telling the truth when he says i'm confident that david samson had no knowledge of this. even if we take christie at his word and he believes that david samson had no knowledge of the lane closures and even if we take david samson at his word that he had absolutely no prior knowledge of the lane closures, what we do know is that when david samson was told about it by the only truth teller in this story, who was trying to make things right, david samson's reaction was to threaten the truth teller. to say he's playing in traffic, "made a big mistake." chris christie fired his campaign manager last week based on just the tone of his e-mails, but chris christie thinks he can keep his personal chairman of the port authority in that job when his e-mails reveal a much more ominous tone, much more disturbing tone. david samson should be the next resignation demanded by chris christie. but he should not be the last. >> i am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people

in the previous state of the state address, chris christie said the last two years chris christie set the governance in america. be honest, don't mince words. those are chris christie's words. we're not going to hear that kind of brand that we see as we wait for him to come out. frank, i want to pick up on two things, one i heard you say earlier, if i understood you right we don't know exactly why it happened. i'm pretty sure we know broadly why it happened at least according to the contemporaneous information that we have. there was a desire and even a glee at punishing democrats and people that they saw were their political enemies. that's in the e-mails. >> but which ones? >> but we know it was political retribution. >> right. the point i'm making it was designed to punish people. and what michael isikoff mentioned, as this turned into a series of investigations, the politics will proceed for some time, but the information can be extremely damaging. i want to be clear for viewers to try to understand where this goes. there are state and state legislature on one track. the federal i

the same chris christie appointee, he is the same chris christie political appointee who gave the order to close those lanes on the bridge. he's the man who gave specific instructions to bridge officials to not warrant local police, and not warrant town of fort lee about what was about to hit them. other e-mails that have been made public show that the port authority knew they were advised explicitly that shutting down those lanes on the bridge would cause the whole town of fort lee to be gridlocked in a backlog of hundreds of stuck cars. they did it anyway. that is explicitly why they did it. that wasn't a bug, that was a feature, that's what they were going for. we now know that because partially redacted e-mails and text message transcripts were published today. those transcripts and e-mails show that governor christie's appointee to the port authority didn't come up with that idea on his own, it came from governor christie's office directly. boom! look, this is an e-mail from governor christie's office, deputy chief of staff telling david wildstein at the port authority, "time for s

the investigation. it's very clear to me that chris christie wanted wildstein to take the fifth amendment the other day.lace today if he didn't. and i don't believe him for one second when he says he wants all his people to cooperate. but i can say that and you shouldn't. thank you both very much for joining me tonight. new jersey senate democratic leader, loretta weinberg and lou greenwald. thank you for joining me tonight. >> thank you, lawrence. >>> coming up, in his press conference the other day, chris christie didn't know it, but he was writing the attack ads that his opponents will use against him when he runs for president. you and maybe chris christie will be amazed to see how easy it is to campaign against him using his own words. and next, "the last word" exclusive. the founder of after gay and lesbian republican group says he's not a republican anymore. he will join me next. welcome back. how is everything? there's nothing like being your own boss! and my customers are really liking your flat rate shipping. fedex one rate. really makes my life easier. maybe a promotion is in order. good news

christie's donors are worried, and the first national poll on chris christie since the bridge scandal broke turns out to be very, very good news for hillary clinton. >> 4 in 10 veoters say christie is a bully. >> we has a nation remain stuck in the news traffic jam. >> chris christie's jersey jam. >> come on! >> chris christie and the problems he's had. >> he's a good politician. he's great at defending himself. >> simultaneously, his political career could be finished. >> that's the problem with christie. it's out of his hands. >> in terms of vetting, in terms of the department of justice investigations. >> he has a long road ahead. >> i have had no contact with david wildstein in a long time. >> so we see that wall street journal picture. >> appearing to interact with wildstein on september 11, 2013, the third day of the lane closures themselves. >> decisions for key players come as early as tomorrow. >> when they testify, what's going to be his position then? >> if you want to talk about salt in the wound, there's this. ♪ i was with pissed off driv

but miss davidman drewniak worked for the chris christie re-election campaign. worked as campaign finance director. now, check this out. november, so after the shutdown, after the election, right? this is when the press was pushing really hard to figure out what had happened with the shutdown. the legislature was starting to sniff around, to try to figure out what happened with the shutdown. but at this time in late november, governor chris christie was still mocking this story, telling everybody it was nothing. in late november, bill baroni testified to the legislature about what happened on that bridge. and he appears to have not told the truth in that testimony, really, at all. really egregiously. for example -- >> 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 to further alter traffic patterns -- excuse me -- in the event of an emergency. >> that is not true. emergency vehicles had a ton of trouble, actually,

the day he's elected, chris christie calls him that night. the next day he gets a follow-up text from the governor's right-hand man at the port authority. right in it's all good. smiles, everyone. smiles. that was may 14th and may 15th. by the next month, by june, those offers of help to the new mayor in jersey city are not just platitudes. not just being nice. not just polite anymore. they are going into motion. the new mayor's due to be sworn in on july 1st. governor christie is planning on speaking at his swearing in. and the governor's office gets in touch, again, ahead of the swearing in. how can we help? what can we do for you in jersey city to make your mayoralty and transition period a success? you want to know who from the governor's office gets in touch with jersey city? yes, her, bridget kelly. chris christie's deputy chief of staff. the one who before the end of the summer would be ordering up traffic armageddon for the little town of ft. lee. well, this e-mail from june 20th is from mayor fulop's office to bridget kelly. "hi, brid

chris christie. seemingly humbled and embarrassed. which is the real chris christie? rian todd has been looking at this part of the story for us. what will it be? >> the real chris christie is the opportunistic one. today, he needed to be the contrite, betrayed leader. but many believe christie's pattern of behavior gives the clearest picture. this isn't the chris christie many of us expected to see. humbled, apologetic. >> i am not a bully. >> and yet it's the jersey tough-guy style which launched him to stardom. >> are you stupid? on topic. on topic. next question. good. thank you. thank you. thank you all very much and i'm sorry for the idiot over there. this is none of your business. >> i'll ask you where you send your kids to school. don't bother asking where i send mine. >> and let me tell you this. you know what, it's people who raise their voices and yell and scream like you that are dividing this country. we're here to bring this country together, not to divide it. >> reporter: according to the book "double down" about the 2012 campaign, christie say ram knee

christie during the super bowl? >> chrisstie is going to buy me a boat this year. it is kind of funny this is all happening. a chilly high school reunion for these two sometime in the future. the governor called in to a sports show in philly about the super bowl and then showed up for a roast in new york city the other night. i'm looking forward to chris christie's roast. it won't be funny because everybody will be speaking under oath. >> more americans viewed him negatively than they did before bridgegate. is his brand too damaged? is the christie brand, the style, too damaged at this point for him to turn things around with or without today's news? >> i'm in the minority. i actually don't think he's necessarily done. if wildstein's claims are true, he's finished in politics forever. americans love to forgive public figures if they're popular enough, looking to you chris brown. his big menace is not hillary clinton. it is the fact that the tea party despises him. the sick irony will be if he dodges this bullet, he can hold

has attacked the republican congress specifically over sandy funding. so chris christie, as someone who is outside of washington running against washington is now finding that republican establishment in washington, largely silent, largely acting through the prism of their self-interest and really not a lot of other governors out there who want to get on point and defend chris christie before they know the question that ken langone raised. is he absolutely telling truth. he should get the benefit of the doubt here. he's entitled to due process. the point that robert made is that now there's federal and state investigators all over this. we'll find out exactly what happened. these people are going to be subpoenaed, be interviewed. what happened and who did what? this will be no different and we'll find out over the next couple of months. >> one of the things he said in his own defense, i delegate enormous authority to my staff. you could see that being thrown into attack ads if he does get to the republican primary. >> i think, you know, it's an interesting line

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 11 9. 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 thursday which is while the shutdown was still going on. on thursday, the day after that photo was taken, thursday, this e-mail was sent between two people who work in governor christie's office. between two of his top staffers. christina genovaso ren that, director of

if it is confirmed, a stunning development in the chris christie saga. do you have any updates you can give us at the moment? >> clearly so. we have reached out to all the parties involved here and can't confirm it at this point. but if it is as reported by "the new york times," it is a huge development in this. i just got a copy of a letter that was sent to the legislature saying they're not -- from the campaign manager. his lawyer says they're not going to comply with the subpoena to turn over documents and other records. they are invoking their fifth amendment rights as a result of the u.s. attorney investigation. so that's also a pretty significant development in this probe you have of the two -- of two of the three key parties. david wildstein, if this new york times report is correct, saying the governor did know. and then his campaign manager and former campaign manager saying they're not going to cooperate with the legislative investigation. >> what is the next step if they're invoking their fifth amendment rights? >> clearly, one can expect the l

i have the same question with chris christie. e the other two on this panel, don't think all the questions have been answered. i still think there's more to come out. but when i ask that same question, what did christie know, when did he know it, i don't see any of that criticism. and bridgegate, in comparison to the things that we've seen with benghazi and first scandal and fast and furious, there was a lot more at stake with those other scandals. >> i think there's like a verbal tick among conservatives, that whenever you mention anything with a republican, they have to say benghazi. >> a verbal tick. you call four dead americans a verbal tick? >> no, no -- >> mark, let me say something. i think dana raises a perfectly relevant point. there is a hypocrisy there. having lived through these three other scandals that she cited, i do remember the way the democrats behaved over that. and now, suddenly, it looks like it's a different cite, even though you could argue that bridgegate is just as serious as the others. people's lives cou

then the state killed the case. chrisattorney general paul o'dowd assigned a deputy attorney general to take control and the indictments were dropped and three career prosecutors were forced out of their jobs. joining me now, one of those former prosecutors who lost his job and republican richard murt, a former new jersey assemblyman who ran against chris christie in the 2009 republican gubernatorial primary. before we get into the details of this case, which i think is very important, given what we've been hearing for the last week, and the governor saying this is an exception, not the way we work. ben, first to you. i just want to get from you, your reaction to the last week and how surprised and unsurprised you are. >> that's a great question, lawrence. the people that were aware of what happened in hunterdon, my fellow prosecutors, investigators, people who worked on the case, i suspect are not surprised at all what happened. in fact, there are very strong parallels between what happened in hunterdon four years ago an

and the debate with chris christie. we begin the program with former senate majority leader tom daschle. thank you for being here. obama with relatively low ratings. what does he have to do to turn things around? >> he has to show energy. he has to show passion or the things he wants to do in the second term. there is a feeling of lethargy. he has had some setbacks. he needs to reading gauge and re-energize. and i think he will do that. >> the focus, we are told, will be on income inequality, which is very real. the critics say that it is derisive and that obama offers no solutions. >> whether he offer solutions or not, you cannot ignore it. there are too many studies about it. there's been a lot of attention internationally. i think it would be bad to ignore it. we have to adjust that. we have got conservatives and liberals talking about it. they have different ways of addressing it. but clearly, there is a universal recognition. >> could there be a consensus? >> i think there is always a chance. that is always the ques

the closures. so far he has not been fired. if chris christie wants to survive this scandal, he needs david samson not to be involved in any of this in any way. and the documents we got today don't make that look like lie. joining me now, bob herbert, former "new york times" columnist and now at the progressive think tank dimos. mr. powell, columnist for "the new york times." you've been covering this as well. all right. a lot of players, we learned some stuff today. what are big things we learned as we sift through these e-mails, michael? i'll start with you. >> that traffic study the governor talks about wasn't really much of a study, as you say. if you close lanes, you get a lot of traffic, especially on the busiest bridge in the country. and it was four pages long. >> it's four pages long. it's also provided, if i'm not mistaken, on the third day of this whole brouhaha after you have andrew cuomo's amoinesppoin the new york side losing his mind about what's going on. >> they gave it some time. >> right. right. so, yeah, the traffic

the assault on fort hillary. let's play "hardball." >>> good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this road hog, the deliberate closing of the washington bridge has just got serious. the special investigator brought in after his role in the successful prosecution of rod blagojevich has about 20 subpoenas in the case. he is not going after just bridget kelly, who promises to be the star witness and bill stepien, the campaign manager, but a wide variety of figures including those at the christie reelection campaign. this says the new jersey assembly people mean business. they picked an investigator with a big notch on his belt all right, reid schar. they have given him wide latitude to get to the truth, including which of christie's cronies tried covering up this caper. supercharged his investigation of richard nixon by hiring john doar who earned his spurs in robert kennedy's department let's see where this is all taking us. heather haddon has been covering this story for "the wall street journal." heather, i'm impressed by the speed with which this special

and no secret by the way that chris christie has his eyes on the white house. polls show him has a potential republican frontrunner in 2006, but will this news harm any potential bid? for that, we go to david schuster and you've been looking at the politics behind the christie move. >> it's 2 and a half years before the presidential campaign, but what's going on, there are advisers close to christie, and they are going across the country, trying to identify operatives, and it hasseers, and people who can bankroll campaigns, and as they try the possible candidates, now, fat chance now, chris. and the new york post, republicans read, chris in a jam. and now you have a lot of people frozen in place who might be incollide to say, wait a second. chris christie looks like a straight shooter, and he looks like the republican for 2006, and let's put our money there. so what chris has to do is satisfy a couple of things in the news conference. he has to make sure that the strategists buy him time, and he has to come up with a plausible story to satisfy the grand jury in

and he is the co-author of "chris christie: the inside story of his rise to power." mr. coffey, talk about the three elements here, criminality, if there was any crime committed, who might have been involved or is exposed to being charged with a crime, and what investigators might do and prosecutors might decide to do with that exposure on their part. >> well, there is still the big question of what exactly is a federal crime here. and obviously, investigators aren't sending subpoenas around unless they have some definite idea as to what the federal crimes might be. i think it's going to take development of facts to see if there are federal jurisdictional elements here. but we think they're looking at, for example, a question of whether there was some kind of extortion within a general meaning of the word of extortion that used the instrumentality of an interstate facility such as a bridge, perhaps a conspiracy to violate civil rights. they've got things that they're looking at. they haven't obviously reached a conclusion as to whether or not they're there. and they go f

christie, is the kushner family. and chris christie sent off charles kushner to prison. this is the family wildstein sold his media empire. to you're generally not going to find yourself into a position like wildstein did if you have that position. the reason why david wildstein ended up with the position is because of bill baroni bringing him. in. >> therefore the kind of guy that would go up against the governor. is he the john dean, potentially the john dean? >> he comes with less loyalty, less to lose from a loyalty standpoint and i could see him more than anybody else in this drama playing that role. absolutely. >> e.j., what are you looking for next? >> i think just as steve has just suggested, i think what you're going to see is a very systematic effort on the part of the christie side to really discredit david wildstein further, to say he is in this to try to get some kind of deal. he is mad because he didn't get a lawyer. so they're going to try to push him aside and push the explicit and implicit allegations aside by