baroni had said i'm giving you no reason at all, or suppose mr. baroni had said we're going to do a traffic study, but it's going to be a sham traffic study. would you still have had authority? >> certainly the first one. he certainly had at any point that discretion to say, as somebody had done very early on in creating these three traffic lanes, there were not required but anything, at any point in time couldn't said i think they should have a fourth or think they should have only two or only one here that was fully within his authority. as the government argued and proved his case below, that was their summation, was he abused e the authority was entrusted with. >> and the second, recorded a sham traffic study? >> i think he can do that. i think as a functional of the matter, who knows what actually results from that but just he has the authority to say were going to do a traffic study because i want to do this thing, and for public reasons, it's easier to do a traffic study. >> you said this is not a sufficiency question. but what is it if it'

baroni had said, i'm giving you no reason at all. or suppose mr. baroni had said we're going to do a traffic study but it's going to be a sham traffic study. would he still have had authority. >> certainly the first one. he certainly had at any point the discretion to say, as somebody had done very early on in creating these three traffic lanes, they weren't required by anything, at any point in time could have said, i think they should have a fourth or i think they should have only two or only one and that was fully within his authority and as the government argued and proved this case below, that was their point. that was their summation was he abused the authority he was entrusted. >> and the second? we're going to do a sham traffic study. >> i think he can do that. i think as a functional matter. who knows what actually results from that. but, yes, he has the authority to say we're going to do a traffic study because i want to do this thing and for public reasons, it's easier to do a traffic study. >> you said this was not a sufficiency questio

baroni had preliminary authority over the operations of the port authority. and mr. wildstein asked, when he was asked why did you come up with the traffic study his first answer was for purposes of the media and for purposes of explaining it to local officials, when pressed by the government, he said, also to give a rope -- a reason for the officials but the fact he -- that he chooses to tale lie to career officials to make this go over more smoothly in the same way that a public official wouldn't tell the world that they're doing something for a political reason. >> but would you spent a moment on the traffic study. >> certainly, your honor. the government has conceded that if mr. -- again, this is new in this court. all of these concessions. that if mr. baroni has authority to order a terrific study he could do so even with the intention of causing traffic in fort lee, and they concede he had the authority order a traffic study. all of that is conceded. what they say is he lied but the existence of a terrific study and there was no lie about the existence of a tra

mr. steppian and miss kelly continue to refuse, then they too honestly will be moving toward contempt charges just like david wildstein. in their case, it is an open question whether they will plead the fifth in order to refuse to testify and that's an important question, right? after what david wildstein did, is everyone going to sit there and plead the fifth? is everyone going to refuse to answer questions? when new jersey spotlight published this piece. rule prevents staff from testifying in bridge gate. senator robert gordon, who's chairman of the legislative oversight committee in new jersey. he announced he had been told by the christie administration, that the christie administration policy that no members of the governor's office are allowed to appear before legislative committees. senator gordon told the new jersey spotlight this is a christie administration policy? there was no such policy before this in previous administrations. now senator gordon wanted testimony from people w

bill baroni on the left. very happy. mr. wildstein in the sunglasses and striped tie talking with governor christie. these two men were the first two christie appointees/allies to resign during the course of this scandal. they were number one and number two. the third person to lose his job in this scandal, bill stepien, chris christie's two-time campaign manager, about to become the head of the new jersey republican party and widely expected to be the campaign manager for governor christie if he mounted a bid for president in 2016. bill stepien was the third person to lose his job during this scandal. the following morning after bill stepien lost his job, bridget kelly lost hers. fired by christie a day after the e-mail surfaced, "time for traffic problems in ft. lee." those are the first four christie allies or staffers that have left or lost their jobs since the scandal started. as of today, we now have number five. christina genovese renna. it was her e-mail that proved that governor christie didn't tell the truth when h

mr. bobbert, who has been on this story since the beginning. i have to ask you, the standing up to msnbc thing, is that just new jersey? like is that -- are you guys used to getting attacked on the basis of your reporting, no matter who you report on? >> i'll say that i think tension between politicians and aggressive reporting organizations, news organizations is not uncommon. in this instance, i can speak for myself, we are representing readers in our coverage area, which were impacted by this, there's no partisan motivation, and i'd also point out that the republicans voted for this legislative committee to investigate this matter. chris christie has someone who's conducting an internal review, it seems like on both sides of the aisle, there's acknowledgement that there are unanswered questions, i think the media is perfectly within its right to pursue this. >> calling a partisan witch hunt when it's every republican in the assembly voted to proceed with the investigation. it's hilario

there was no traffic study and in fact it was a coaching job by mr. kwon of mr. baroni. and that's what they're looking at in terms of these subpoenas. that's what they're going after. >> well, you know, the cover-up is always worse than whatever it is they're trying to cover up. that's definitely what they think. that's why they're going for this. the other thing is when bill baroni testified, he really irked a lot of people. people thought he was playing a game with them. now they got the subpoena power. >> why does governor christie keep saying, at least as late as he has talked about it that there may have been a traffic stop that turned into a political punishment job, or there might have been a political punishment job that turned into a traffic study. give me a surmise. why would he keep backing up. >> beats the heck out of me. we were surprised when he said it could have been a traffic study. the port authority already said there is no traffic study. we can't figure out why he went back. although he has been off his game lately. he also said he didn't know anythi

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 and the new jersey press has had to deal with since tom kean about 30 years ago, because of his popularity. his enormous public popularity and skills behind the scenes. he's had alliances with key democrats in the state that have helped him get major legislative things through and the question is, does that all break up now, do the democrats start turning on him and do the media start paying attention to stories they have not pursued because c

. >> so mr. baroni told you nothing was prepared. but in the documents turned over by wildstein, you have this power point that was being prepared but not concluded. >> and the power point shows that the people of ft. lee would suffer immeasurably by this plan. >> wow. e.j., it doesn't seem like this traffic report is going to be the answer here. >> if you need a traffic study to show you that ft. lee would be jammed with traffic if you shut down two lanes of this bridge, you shouldn't be in the transportation business. i mean, it's absurd on its face. bill bennett, not often quoted on this network, once said that social science involves the elaborate demonstration of the obvious by methods that are obscure. this was a demonstration of the obvious by a method that was unnecessary and probably contrived. >> well, we're going to have to leave it there. but i can say this, that we're hearing more names, more questions, and you heard tonight assemblyman wisniewski saying they want to extension on the time so they can do the work to get t

i never got an answer from mr. baroni. and i kept my mouth closed until yesterday. it was time now for us to speak out because it affects so many other people. there is a culture in trenton, there is a culture which is unfolding which should have unfolded before the last gubernatorial election. this governor has been dually elected. he deserves to be sworn-in. but the truth shall be known by everybody. it won't matter what statue of life, what status of life you're in, what party you belong to, this is going to be a big deal, wolf. i guarantee you. >> and will it directly involve the governor? >> well, that remains to be seen. we'll watch it unfold. but who would have thought a month ago when we were dismissed as simply people trying to bring some partisan politics to an election that already happened, we know about that in washington as you know. who would have thought we'd be here today listening to a gentleman who resigned as mr. baroni take the fifth amendment on what you would call and i would call inane questions. there is something beyond bridget kelly. if yo

there are only three people who are invited, the government, mr. baroni or miss kelly. charlie: one of them called you as a witness. chris: if i had i would have come. charlie: you would have relished coming? chris: i don't know about that. charlie: you said you had been waiting for three years to make your case, and this would have been in front of everybody under oath to make your case. chris: i have made my case under oath privately. charlie: what does that mean? chris: at the u.s. attorney's office. under oath. for hours. and i would have been happy to go to court and testify. and then there would not have -- would have been seven people who said she was lying. charlie: so in your career back to the question, do you intend to run for office again? chris: we will see. right now i do not. but you never say never in this life. i am 54 years old. i am term limited as governor so my term here will end on january 18 of 2018. will i ever run for anything again is a decision i will make in the future. i will not preclude it. charlie: there are those who will argue like chri

testimony that mr. wild stein initiated it at his approval with his approval. now i -- i don't know given some of the e-mails i saw yesterday but clearly mr. wildstein -- i guess time will tell but clearly there was knowledge of this action, whatever it was, prior to the beginning of it with bridget kelly. that was something i said in answer to a question a few weeks ago was not the case. that's what we were told after repeated questioning of all of the people around here. i was lied to. for that, she's been terminated. >> angie -- >> hundreds if not thousands of people, how did you feel to get the truth from your own staff? >> first off, i would love angie to believe that i interviewed hundreds if not thousands of people as u.s. attorneys. i did not. it was the very rare occasion when the u.s. attorney himself or herself goes into a room and interviews a witness. it probably happens a dozen times in seven years, very rare occurrence. a angie, try to understand this on a personal level if you worked for

quote, the indictment strongly implies that mr. baroni was the impetus for starting the lane closures on the first day of school in ft. lee. however, as the government knows -- redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted. after that one line is redacted, it says this, once again, an act is inappropriately laid at mr. baroni's feet. that's kind of amazing, right? can we put that back up there again for a second on screen. this is a really dramatic place to put a big black line. that's basically saying, hey, you know the indictment of bill baroni came up with the idea for bridgegate, but you guys know he didn't start it. you guys know he wasn't the impetus for bridgegate. you guys -- look, the government knows that it was beep! that's page one of the narrative of the bridgegate defense filings that went in at midnight last night. and as governor christie's presidential campaign is hoping that this trial is going to clear the air and settle this matter and get this cloud cleared from his presidential campaign. well, provocative redactions

from what i know at this point mr. baroni and mr. wildstein's position is lanes were closed to do a traffic study. and i've heard nothing from them that changes their position. i now see e-mails which indicate that there is a political overtone to what went on. i don't know what the situation is. i don't know whether -- i think i answered this before, i don't know whether this was some type of rogue political operation that morphed into a traffic study, or traffic study that morphed into an additional rogue political operative. i don't know. well, listen, as best i can, but, you know, mr. wildstein is scheduled to testify at the legislature. not like he's available for interview. as i said in response to a question over here, i'm not going to get in the middle of the legislative process with people that they've already noticed to be witnesses. i think that would be inappropriate. let them do their job. because if i did then i'd be accused of trying to play around with testimony, which i'm not going to get involved in. marsha. [ inaud

baroni for that testimony. can you give us insight into who phil kwon is and how he connects back to governor christie? >> he was a former nominee to the supreme court. he was not approved for that position and then appointed by christie to a position as an attorney in the legal department of the port authority. this is a legal department that has several attorneys. it's a large legal staff. phil kwon and at least one other attorney was recommended for jobs at the port authority. so these are people who moved from the christie administration to the legal department within the port authority. >> and then once in the legal department for whatever reason were tasked with prepping mr. baroni for his false testimony about the traffic study. you see why this story makes me so crazy. let me just ask you one last question, shawn, in terms of what happens -- what happens next. and what happens with governor christie as he's trying to govern the state while also managing this fallout. the timeline about the governor's in

mr. baroni responds, "thanks, william." william stepien. "loretta and wiz meeting new jersey senator loretta weinberg and senator john wisniewski will keep up their nonsense but at least we will have explained the counter narrative." the counter narrative. aka the cover story. so bill stepien who'd been chris christie's campaign manager tells bill baroni great job about his cover story, and bill baroni celebrates having sold the counter narrative. also disclosed today are e-mails that show bill stepien, then in the midst of running chris christie's re-election campaign being made aware of the infamous traffic problems in fort lee and fort lee's mayor being upset about it. the same week that the traffic problems were happening. contemporaneous to the lane closures bill stepien was in on it. chris christie's campaign manager was being made aware of the situation. these new texts are part of the latest court filings for a superior court judge in new jersey to consider whether or not bill stepien and bridget kelly have to comply with the commit

a close christie ally helping to prep mr. baroni for parts of four to five days before mr. baroni claimed the ft. lee lane closures were part of legitimate traffic study. meanwhile former port authority official david wildstein having leveled the charge that evans exists that christie knew of the lane closures during the time of the lane closures is a target of an attack from governor christie. we'll dive into that momentarily as well. it's something you would normally expect in a political campaign against a political opponent. governor christie's office also today sent supporters a virtual bucketful of information suggesting the latest big accusation is really the media's fault. begins with criticism of the original "new york times" headline from friday, includes editorials, interviews, tweets espousing the idea "the new york times" headline was sloppily and misleading. all this surfacing before whatever mountain of new information may soon come out from documents right now are either being collected or making their way to the new jersey investigative committee in respons

. >> mr. baroni and miss kelly abused their positions in the government, used government resources, to settle a petty political score. and they showed a callous disregard for the welfare for the people they were suppose to be serving. >> reporter: now both kelly and baroni are free on bail while they are appealing their convictions, former u.s. attorney paul fishman whose office tried this case says just because governor christie was not charged doesn't mean he was not involved. >>> and governor christie met with president trump at the white house and trump tapped christie to head a special commission to head the opioid abuse commission. christie says he will focus on increased law enforcement and addiction treatment. >>> a contracted school worker is under arrest in upper darby after it was discovered he had a gun on school grounds and had 40 rounds of ammunition. that dominique jordan dropped a bullet in the bathroom of the middle school and jordan came to the office looking for his bull and

wildstein and mr. baroni to do this alleged traffic study and close lanes, but it sure seems to me that it was done on his behalf when the mayor did not support him when he was running for the election. >> wait, you think it is -- you have worked with this governor, you're a re-elected representative in the state assembly. >> yes. >> you think it's plausible that chris christie, or chris christie's confederates would do something like this? >> well, when this first came to light and the legislature asked questions as to what is going on here, at first, there was no response. then they came up with this traffic study because it favored ft. lee residents, which made no sense at all, and mr. baroni came to the hearing with this large graphic depicting the lanes that were being shut down, and this particular entrance was set aside for ft. lee residents back in the 1930s, but there's no contract, nothing in writing about that, by the way, and there's no signage that says ft. lee residents only, so we kind o

they called mr. baroni's successor who testified that that was the arrangement. justice: this is a bistate agency. why would new jersey agree to an arrangement like that where there are always in the second seat, at least nominally? is that the brick brother across the river, -- the big brother across the river, is that it? >> i don't know the answer to that except that the structure within the port authority, that was the case. it was understood that within the port authority the deputy executive director had equal authority. the vice-chairman testified but about these parallel chains of command, particularly for decisions made within new jersey . it was understood that would fall within the deputy executive director's scope of authority. justice: i think one of the government's main arguments on the efficiency of -- on the sufficiency of the evidence which was clearly pro-government, was that mr. whils wildsteen had to lie to te port authority employees about the executive director knowing about the lane change. if in fact the reality of the situation was that

that e-mail was send to bill baroni, so he knew. we also know mr. baroni was sent a letter from the mayor of ft. lee on thursday of the shutdown, telling him, quote, our emergency service vehicles are suffering tremendous response time delays. we also know mr. baroni received phone messages about emergency public safety matters, messages to which bill baroni did not respond, even though we know he got them. so when bill baroni testified to the legislature that day in late november, and he said, the port authority took care of it, the port authority, at all times, we were monitoring the situation, to make sure no emergency vehicles were having any trouble, we stood ready to change any traffic patterns as need be, if emergency vehicles were having any problems, when he said that to the legislature in late november, it was not true and he knew that it was not true. so, yeah, bill baroni was one of the first people who had to resign in this scandal and now he's been subpoenaed and he's been told to hand over his cell phone and all the rest. yeah, that's

baroni for that testimony. contact with mr. baroni ahead of the testimony, the governor's office more broadly and a huge, long list of people in the port authority and the governor's office including, like, assistants and people who don't have high-level jobs. does seem like a very wide net they're casting for this information, doesn't it? >> it does. you know, it struck me there were names on there from the governor's administration i didn't know and i've covered him for four years. that tells you they're getting down deep into this. you know, it goes back to that basically to that text from baroni, if you remember, he texted david wildstein to say what was the response from the administration on his testimony? and wildstein typed back, you know, they were happy and he threw out a couple of names. i think that's where they're zeroing in is baroni was specifically asking, hey, what did they think of what i just did? he was told they loved it. i think that's probably what sparked this interest in, you know, who in the administra

they arraigned former deputy chief of staff, briget spsz ann kelly and mr. baroni. they were charged for causing the jam. >> i would never risk my career my job, my reputation for something like this. >> former christie ally david wildstein pleaded guilty on friday to two counts of conspiracy and admitted that he helped plot the lane closures. christie is not implicated and says he did not know anything about it. >>> believe it or not, hurricane season is less than a month away now and storm specialists say now is the time to get ready. "nbc 10" had a chance to go inside a hurricane hunter plane at the atlantic city international airport yesterday. hurricane hunters are the planes that fly into storms to gauge conditions and gather data for weather forecasters. the plane came to the jersey shore yesterday as part of a tour to help people get ready for hurricane season. >> any hurricane season can bring just one storm or hurricane to your community and make it a bad year. i can't tell you it won't be this year. >> for the first time this year get this the national hu

"baroni and i were pleasing governor christie." wildstein said that christie laughed at the news and joked, the prosecutor then asked, "were you and mr. baroni bragging?" "yes, it was our one constituent. i was pleasing my one constituent, and i was happy that he was happy." the meeting took place on day three of a traffic jam like no other. two lanes ordered closed by the port authority, creating near-total gridlock and widespread frustration. wildstein has admitted to coming up with the idea. the prosecution alleges the plan was meant as political payback republican, for re-election. christie has repeatedly denied any knowledge of the lane closures. >> i've made it very clear to everybody on my senior staff that if anyone had any knowledge. this, that they needed to come forward to me and tell me about it, and they've all assured me that they don't. >> reporter: governor christie is not on trial, but two of his lieutenants are, on charges ranging the from conspiracy to fraud. scott, david wildstein has re >> pelley: don dahler at

then mr. baroni asks, just good? then he swears. then mr. wildstein goes on to assure him other trenton people who appear to be staffers in governor christie's office thought he did just great with his cover-up testimony. the "star-ledger" appears to be reporting that is where mr. wildstein texts this statement, o'toole statement ready, to bill baroni. o'toole statement ready. he sent that message right after bill baroni finished his testimony. sure enough on that same day, senator kevin o'toole released a statement that took the bill baroni line, repeated the story from his testimony, repeated the cover story about the supposed traffic study. the next day he published a similar version of the statement as an op-ped in the newspaper, in the "bergen record." think about this for a second. in the legislature, the highest profile person advancing the cover-up, advancing the false cover story about the fake traffic study in a statement he released from his office then an op-ped he released the next day, which apparently was ready to go as soon a

baroni for his apees appearance before the transportation committee. that was the cover-up that mr. baroni was sent in to articulate to the transportation committee, not under oath and not as a result of subpoena. but in this letter, mr. wildstein's attorney says that the counseling was conducted over a period of four to five days and mr. wildstein was present for much of it. that means that the port authority attorney actually counselled bill baroni, if in fact this letter is truthful, actually counselled bill baroni on what to say on the cover-up. so there's another little subtext in this letter that was released today. >> loretta weinberg, hold on. i want you to stay with us and i want kate to stay with us and our correspondents and analysts. there's a lot more to digest. we'll take a quick break and resume our coverage. potentially very damning evidence against the governor. we'll have more what is going on right after this. ♪ [ male announcer ] what kind of energy is so abundant, it can help provide the power for all this? natural gas. ♪ more than ever before, america's ele