0 from kentucky rand paul to be a part of this and talk about the tpp and american jobs. he refused tonight to be on the program. we asked him about next week and got no response. the same with michele bachmann from minnesota who claims to be a big advocate for american jobs. i ask any republican in the congress bring your numbers to this program and let's talk about the tpp. that's "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. "politicsnation" with reverend al sharpton starts right now. good evening, rev. >> good evening, ed. and thanks to you for tuning in. tonight's lead, the investigation widens. we're tracking major developments in the chris christie bridge scandal. all day we've been learning details of the subpoenas sent to top christie aides in what has been a dramatic expansion of this case. investigators from the new jersey assembly and senate are trying to learn why lanes to the george washington bridge were shut down for four days in the traffic -- who caused the traffic jams and why is still obviously a mystery. we do know that david wildstein is a key figure in that and had those communications with bridget kelly back in august. but it's the months that after that that the weeks and months after that that really is what is so politically perilous for governor christie here because -- >> what do you mean? what would be perilous about that time frame? >> well, because there is extensive e-mails and text messages showing that as these traffic jams created this political uproar, state lawmakers, local officials were demanding answers as to why these lane closures took place, what was going on, and the pushback from the christie appointees on the port authority, and then the governor's office was it was a traffic study. well, we now know from the senate commerce committee yesterday there is zero evidence that such a traffic study was taking place. so why did they maintain the cover story of the traffic study? what did people close to the governor know about that? and did they ask questions as to what was really going on? and why did they maintain the story? governor himself, remember, he had that news conference in december, and he ridiculed the whole idea that there was some legitimate story here, pretending, oh, with some sarcasm that he personally put down the cones, causing those lane closures, sort of dismissing the whole thing. well, you know, it comes down to who knew what, when. that's what is going to be so dangerous for the governor's office. >> let me ask you, michael, were you surprised at how broad the subpoenas were? i mean, they have brought in schar from illinois, who is a tough prosecutor, reid schar. were you surprised at schar coming in and how broad the subpoenas are? >> yeah, i was. because initially wisniewski, who heads the probe, was only talking about limited subpoenas to kelly and stepien, bridget kelly and bill stepien, the former campaign manager. and then reid schar, the prosecutor who put rod blagojevich in jail in illinois comes in, looks at this and says no, a wide net has to be cast here. and we end up with these 20 subpoenas going back, by the way, to september of 2012. more than a year before these lane closures took place. and the numbers of people who got the subpoenas, their names we're just learning today who had not surfaced publicly before who received subpoenas. we're not quite sure why. but it does look like they've got evidence that has not been made public that suggests that there was a -- at least they want to look at a much broader net than we had initially thought. >> michael isikoff, we'll be watching this. this is broad. and this going forward. thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> joining me now is the man michael referred to, new jersey assemblyman democrat john wisniewski. he has been leading the assembly's investigation from the start. thank you for coming on the show tonight, assemblyman. >> thanks for having me back on. i appreciate it. >> assemblyman, 20 subpoenas for a lot of documents. why you casting such a wide net? >> we have so many questions. and we're not really sure where the answer lies. and the important thing is we try and get to the heart of this as quickly as possible. the question that remains is why bridget kelly thought she was empowered to send an e-mail to close lanes in ft. lee. it's clear that she didn't come up with the idea on her own, and it's clear that someone else had to work with her. so when you look at all of the names that come up in all of the documents we have received so far, you see a lot of possibilities. no clear answers. and the subpoenas we're sending doesn't mean that anybody in that list has done anything wrong. but we want to get information so we can get to the bottom of this. >> now, you asked for documents going back to september of 2012. why that date? why going back so far? >> well, you know, the interesting thing we learned is when we did the subpoena to david wildstein initially, we asked for documents from august 1 forward. and when we looked at those documents, we saw there were communications that seemed to be a continuation of something that happened before then. so we recognize that this goes back further. we thought one year was an appropriate period of time to go back. >> now, you know this week the assembly announced the hiring of a big legal name to his counsel. >> right. >> as your counsel. >> reid schar. >> and he is advising your committee on the investigation, reid schar who we just discussed with michael isikoff. why such a big name? >> well, this has become very complicated. this started out as a very simple investigation into the operations of the port authority. and we followed it piece by piece through the lane closures and we wound up finding ourselves in the governor's office. not because we wanted to, but that's where the governor's people led us. because of the complexity now, because there are so many other investigations, the office of inspector general and others, we wanted to make sure that we were doing it right, that we were respecting boundaries, and that we were doing it efficiently. and that's what reid schar is going to do. >> assemblyman, when the governor first addressed the scandal last week, he pledged his full cooperation. listen to this. >> listen, i have absolutely nothing to hide. and i've not given any instruction to anyone yet. but my instruction to everybody will be to cooperate and answer questions. >> now, this week, his language seemed to change. listen to this. >> i'm the governor. and i'm ultimately responsible for all that happens on my watch, both good and bad. and without a doubt, we will cooperate with all appropriate inquiries to ensure that this breach of trust does not happen again. >> now, now he is saying all appropriate inquiries. i mean, do you see that as a change in what he is saying, and is yours appropriate? and who decides who is appropriate? >> well, ours is appropriate. it's authorized by statute and our constitution that the assembly can look into issues such as this. i'm concerned about the choice of words, but i would prefer to hope that because the governor both times said cooperate, that he will cooperate. i think he'll be judged by his actions. >> now, he has also brought in also on his side a high-powered attorney, randy mastro. so it looks like they're digging in to prepare for a fight if you have a high power powered attorney, he has one. are you ready for a fight? if this gets down to a real dig-in fight, are you and your committee prepared for that? >> we're prepared to do what is necessary to get at the truth. we have the same mission, essentially. i don't think it needs to come to a fight. i think we can work to get to the truth. i think really the ball is in the governor's court. if he wants to get the answers as to why bridget kelly did this, then all he needs to do is cooperate with the investigation so we can all get an answer and we can move on. >> if they come in and plead the fifth, as david wildstein did. >> right. >> are you prepared to hold people in contempt? are you prepared to really be firm and hard in these interrogations? >> we're going to firmly pursue this investigation. we're going to fight to make sure that we get what we're entitled to as an assembly committee. we're going to hope for cooperation. we're going to take the governor at his word, and we'll judge the outcome by what he does. like i said before, this is in the governor's court. he can cooperate. we can get through this quickly, and we can all move on. but if there is going to be a resistance to what the assembly is doing, that is just going to protract this and raise suspicions as to why is the governor resisting providing information. he himself said he wanted to provide. >> give me a sense of the timing. you have given them two weeks to bring the documents. then what? >> we sent the first subpoenas out, we got thousands of pages back. and it took staff quite a while to go through. now we have 20 subpoenas. i don't is a good idea on how many documents we'll get, but there will be quite a fluchlt will be a week or two or three in which staff reviews the documents. and then likely after that we'll make decisions as to who we want to hear testimony from. >> big, big, big investigation. we'll be watching. assemblyman john wisniewski, we thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> have a good weekend. >> thank you. coming up, ready to break his silence. the man at the center of the scandal with all the secrets is asking for immunity. this is about to get interesting. plus, obama derangement syndrome strikes again. did rand paul really say this? >> the danger to majority rule, to him sort of thinking well the majority voted for me, now i'm the majority, i can do whatever i want and that there are no rules that restrain me, that's what gave us jim crow. plus, a major victory in the fight against right-wing voter suppression today. you got to hear about this. and a big day for the first lady and the champ. big show on friday. stay with us. 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