0 have been privileged to be part of the governor elect chairman. >> later, christie appointed him chairman of the port authority. when he did his walk through for the 2012 republican convention, samson is there. he is, simply put, one of christie's closest advisers. >> traveling with the governor, susana martinez and port authority, chairman, david samson. >> as he was calling his other newly fired advisers liars, he stood by david samson whose name appeared in the first batch of e-mails from david wildstein. he said he was helping us to retaliate against the new york port authority. on september 13th, the now resigned bill barone forwarded an irate e-mail with the question, general, as in former attorney general, can i call you on this now? to me, as i follow this and i get barbarian on it, samson's role becomes more and more important. partly because, "a," this is a prominent, very important figure in new jersey politics. this is a big guy, a rainmaker. you want to do a development deal, you hire david samson. he is a big deal. it is not bridget kelly who most people hadn't heard of until two weeks ago. he is the one guy that is in all these e-mails, governor christie sat down with for two hours. can samson convince them i had nothing to do with it? chris christie wants us to believe he had nothing to do with it. to me, samson is the fire-all. >> i agree with you. the problem for the governor is, he came out here and gave yet another assurance that somebody else was not involved. remember, that's how this started. none of my staff was involved. they all told me. he did it again with samson, yet samson's names are all over those e-mails, including one that says, samson helping us to retaliate. that's a problem. >> here is what you have to believe. if the governor, chris christie, is telling the truth, here is what had to happen. stepian and bridget kelly pulls it off and randy lee catches the wind and says, what the heck are you idiots doing? you are going to get someone killed. i've shut this down. they, not having been happy with shutting down traffic for four days, they want the thing to keep going. they push back hard and call in samson, the chair of the whole port authority to help them. in order for the truth to already be on the table, it has to be the case that samson is helping them push back against new york having been told a lie about the origin of the traffic jam, believing that lie and acting upon that lie. >> not only that. he, at the very least, didn't ask the right question. you have to wonder, why was this traffic study such a big deal? is there any merritt to his argument. what strikes me about the e-mails is that samson was most interested, not in what happened to the people of ft. lee and the other new jersey commuters, he was most interested in, we have to protect the governor and we are angry for putting the story out here. his primary interest was political damage control. >> he thinks he is the source for the wall street journal stories. they are all furious. you know, because you worked at the port authority. part of the context is the snake's nest that is the port authority. these are really brutal politics. because there is a $20 billion budget or something crazy. it is co-appointed by new york government and new jersey government and they are all basically at war with each other. >> that's great context. the port authority, there is so much tension between people in new york and people in new jersey. that's the context. there is this push and pull that goes on. what's problematic for governor christie, former attorney general sampson knew, then it is going to be hard for governor christie to make the case he did not know. >> that is the fireable argument. we just played that footage. this isn't some guy i never met or i was student president and an athlete in high school and i haven't seen david wildstein in how long. he is walk on the stage, on the bus tour with you, introducing you to donors. >> he has called him a mentor at times. this is not bridget kelly. this guy is it in political circles. they showed the new jersey power list. i actually put that together. >> i was not on that. >> you were number 101. >> i was smarting from that. i think we put david samson last year number two. i am sure he was top five this year. he has been in politics for years. he has had prominent positions in republican and democratic positions. this is a guy who is politics in new jersey. he is not a guy that operated on his own. >> he is also very loyal. >> i want to make this clear. i have no idea whether david samson knew about this or not. i do not know. it may be totally the case. he was just going to war against the new york people because he was being loyal. that's what he believed. i want to make clear. i don't want to impune the guy without the facts there. he is very well-respected. that's the other thing. this isn't some pack operative. >> he is extremely well-respected on both sides of the aisle which is very hard to be. his firm is well-respected. he does ethics for the judiciary. if, in fact, he knew, obviously, this is where people are trying to go, if, in fact, he knew, this creates another problem for christie as more and more people are implicated and with the specter of them knowing, it gets so much closer to him. from a purely political standpoint, fund-raising standpoint, 2016, premature. we know his eyes are on that prize. the more stuff that comes out, it just prolongs this and it keeps the drip going. >> speaking of drips, we are going to get probably subpoenas tomorrow from two different committees. what are you expecting out of those? >> i think they are going to try to -- there is also the u.s. attorney's investigation. we are going to see that committee trying to get its work out quickly, because they don't want to be preempted by the u.s. attorney's investigation. they don't want to have the governor say, well, i'm going to cooperate with the appropriate investigation by the u.s. attorney. i think they are going to rush to get those subpoenas out and get as many e-mails as they can. >> the big question is, everyone knows they are going to subpoena bridget kelly. she writes. lord knows what is in those e-mails. i have heard from some people i have talked to in new jersey politics that there is a lot of resistance or pushback against this thought of subpoenaing david samson. there are some favors being called in right now to make sure that doesn't happen. >> i don't think they would do that likely. it is no the a bridget kelly, a deputy chief of staff. this is a guy you have to tread lightly around. this is a hugely respected guy in new jersey politics. this is not a shady guy by all accounts. this is a guy who for years has been respected by both sides of the aisle. you don't just drag him into this lightly and from his side, i have to think, he wants nothing to do with this. he has a very, very prominent law firm in the state of new jersey. to even be mentioned in this thing has got to be killing him. >> finally, we had some news that one of the committees has hired former u.s. prosecutor, who is wa the person that prosecuted rod blagojevich to be their chief investigator. like you said, there is kind of a race right now about who is going to get to what fast. the best thing to happen, for christie, is the fact that an u.s. attorney investigation he can cooperate that isn't in the papers every day. he can say, i'm cooperating and try to snuff this out. the worse case is, if they get more subpoenas, we get more documents and there is more fuel on the fire. >> we are more likely to get stuff in the legislature than the u.s. attorney's office. they did not want to say anything. they were lucky to say they were looking into this. darryl, kate, tara, thank you for joining me. many could go up next -- >> we don't know if chris christie ordered the lanes closed to get back at a mayor or knew that his close friend did. if it comes out that he did, it is a 100% disqualifying for higher offices. someone willing to shut down the world's biggest bridge as payback over a petty political slight, cannot be trusted with the irs or the nsa or the nuclear codes. >> that was in the first report we did one month ago tomorrow. do republican primary voters and big money donors agree it is disqualifying? we will talk about the political future of chris christie ahead and what accounts as disqualifying right after this.