0 this week and this morning we can bring you new exclusive and startling information about top officials in chris christie oost administration. it attempts to link the chris ty administration to sandy funds. the project which happens to directly involve the law firm of the port authority chairman. that's a lot to absorb and we're going to take you through all of it in just a minute. we're going to hear directly from the mayor who says she was on the receiving end of this pressure campaign. she's been refusing media" all week but she's here this mompg to tell her story and it's a story you have not seen anywhere in the press before right now. there are a lot of documents, a lot of names, a lot of complicated but necessary context. please, i'm going to ask you, bear with us. we're going to take our time here and do our best to give you the clearest and accurate picture of what we know. and the best place to start this story then is probably five years ago. it was a famous day in new jersey politics. the day you may even remember even if you don't live in new jersey. but it's the day that in many ways made chris christie governor, a thursday that began like any other thursday in america but not in the garden state where the federal agents rounded up dozens of politicians snared in one of the massive stings in the nation. the feds recruited a crafty and failed real estate operator a man who had been arrested for bank fraud a few years early for trying to pass $50 million in bad checks. to save his own hide he cooperated with the feds and went undercover and trafld from town to town in new jersey to meet with political handlers with a simple offer, here's a pile of cash take it and promise me in return that i'll get what i need in your town. there were a lot of poll call officials who took that cash and made that promise. then they found themselves this handcuffs handcuffs. one of them was this man. he had gone asleep the night before a rising political star the newly elected mayor of hoboken. a melting pot city on the banks of the hudson river. it's a place where young artists living along the side of the blue collar heyday. you'll find stockbrokers there. that's hoboken. it's a fun place to live. it's one of the most coveted areas for developers. if you get to build in hoboken you can make a lot of money. that's the still that he had been elected to lead in june 2009. he was young, charismatic, a council and being in that job it made her next the line to become the mayor. then in november of 2009 on the same day that christy became governor, dawn zimmer won a full term as the mayor of hoboken. here's the thing, dawn zim ser a democrat and ho boek season a very democratic town but down zimmer was a fan of chris christie. she likes that he had helped clean up her town by taking a mayor who was ready to sell off hoboken for $25,000 and throwing him behind bars. she believes in a lot of his reform agenda even parts that made other democrats uncomfortable. when he called for a local property tax cap, mayor zimmer endorsed the plan. she hosted him for his first town hall meeting. christie liked and christie still like to talk about reaching across the aisle and his relationship with ho back en's mayor fit to a tee, the image that he cultivated. but that's how it used to be but that story turned. if you've been following the news this week, there have been story of all hoboken was ravaged with hurricane sandy. you remember the pictures of military tanks, millions of gallons of water gushing into the path commuter rail station, a key hub that connects commuters from n to new jersey every day. it's just one square mile. it lies mostly below sea level. it was supremely vulnerable to a storm like sandy. and it's still supremely vulnerable to a storm like sandy because even though it was ravaged by sandy and even though mayor zimmer's team has devised a comprehensive plan to protect the city in the future lez than 1% of that giant pool of relief money has gone to the city. the story you've heard in the news this week is this is supposedly because dawn zimmer didn't enforce chris christie's campaign. but that is not the story. dawn zimmer says the real reason, the real reason she's here to tell us about goes back to that same one word that was at the heart of that famous day in 2009 that helped make chris christie governor, that day that lifted dawn zimmer to the position of mayor of hoboken, that one word that is more often than any ore word at the heart of any political corruption story that emanates from the garden state. development. this is the north end of hoboken one one of the last remaining pockets that hasn't been touched by redevelopment which made it an attractive location for the major developer, the rockefeller group. they came in in 2008 they bought up portions of three blocks in hoboken's north end. in 2009 the city council quickly decided to see if that part of town needed to be re0 developed. redevelopment is a technical term. it means that a property becomes eligible for tax incentives from state and local governments. so if it was cleared for redevelopment, the rockefeller group would have a freer hand to build whatever they wanted. all of this happened before dawn zimmer became mayor. after she won her full term as mayor she didn't think the city needed that redevelopment right away. the crash of '08 was exacting a brutal toll the city was being monitored by state officials. the mayor told rockefeller she wasn't against the idea of them building in hoboken but but they would have to follow the same process as everybody else and that process couldn't start until the city had enough people to pay planners and engineers to study the issue. this created some tension. the rockefeller talked in the press how it was putting on the finishes for this plan and how the predecessors had been moving the process along. she wrote to the author of the story, quote, there have been no negotiations with the rockefeller group regard thag project by my administration. there will be no negotiations until a study has completed in order to determine what kind of development our city would like to have in that area. that's what she wrote to the reporter of that story. so they're at an impasse. the rockefeller group had huge plans but mayor zimmer wasn't aggressively moving forward on it. that's when the christie administration comes in and specifically this woman. her name is lori grif fa. in 2010 he was his commissioner of department of commune affairs. that means she was in chris christie's cabinet. stiller says that grif fa came to ho back enthat june open told zimmer that they may be able to track down a source to pay for the study and soon enough the christie commission connected zimmer to the port authority. that's the same port authority that operates the george washington bridge. the same port authority that's littered with political appointees of christie. it's also the same port authority that came through with this in 2010. it's a letter to zimmer for the port to pay for the study. grant was up for $75,000. and for zimmer it seems like the perfect solution. she was not against developing the land. she just wanted a real professional study and now she had the money to pay for one. and there was a string attached. there was a condition. the port authority would get to pick the firm that did the study but the firm they chose in february 2011 had a solid reputation. this is the letter from the authority authority designating clark kayton hinds thoints do the study. it took a long time through 2012, hurricane sandy slowed things down, then finally in january 2013 the draft of the report came back and zimmer says it baffled hear and her team. the firm was to evaluate a 19-block area in the north end to see what was eligible for that designation of redevelopment. and all of the goodies that come with it. the report did conclude that some of that neighborhood fit the cry tear yoo but the only blocks that it recommended for redevelopment were the three blocks where the rockefeller group owned property. two and three quarters of that block were owned by rockefeller group. these are the only blocks in the north end where rockefeller owned property and the only blocked recommended in that study for development. this is more curious if you walk or drive through the blocks. if you're a layman like me and you're walking around there, it's hard to see why just those three blocks could be singled out like this. zimmer's team was not alone in wondering about that. the landowners of the other 16 blocks hired a lawyer calling the study curious and suspect to say the least. but the rockefeller group had a powerful advocate a law firm called wolf and samson. it's known for its close and intimate tie to the christie administration. the someson is david samson. he's the chairman of the port authority, the former attorney general of new jersey. he's chris christie's general at the port authority who's coming under screw any. you can see that david samson's law firm represents the rockefeller group. and you can see this is the page that lori grif fa signed. if that name gives you day jay view, it should. she was the department of community affairs commissioner under christie who originally suggested that mayor zimmer turn to the point authority that david samson chairs to get money for the development study for the land that the rockefeller group owns. but she left the christie administration in 2011 and went to work for wolf and samson. he was hard at work doing the bidding of the rockefeller group. this is as the study is still going on. e-mailing a lawyer hired by hoboken to serve on its council. she's e-mailing him in 2012 to tell him our client the rockefeller group specifically asked us to speak to you with regard to its property in hoboken. the report comes back in january of last year. it says that the whole 19-block area is eligible to be declared an area in need of rehabilitation. that's a much weaker determination and that only three ploks in that area, the three blocks with rockefeller properties on them are eligible for the much more powerful redevelopment designation. the city has some concerns. the next step is the planning board. how will they choose to handle the report. rockefeller group obviously would like to get this to the planning board and the city council fast so it can get build. so wolf and samson turns up the heat. here's and e-mail from may of 2013 from that same attorney writing to a woman named brandy forbes. she serve ds as ho back en's community development director. i'm getting the full court press on this. i have a voice mail from last night from lori asking that i join a call this morning in lori and dave samson chair of the port authority or suggest another time. here's an e-mail from that same day from lori grif fa herself, joe, she wroets, aye been trying to set up a telecon with dave samson. what do way want to talk about specifically. on april 19thth again the subject is hoboken slash rockefeller group. she said she assumes the study is going to be adopted we the planning board. copied on that e-mail from grif fa to hoboken east is david samson. he writes back that it would be premature to discuss anything until ale unless the planning board accepts this. when the may 8th meeting comes, the hoboken planning board votes 4-3 that there is insufficient evidence to designate those three blocks in area for redevelopment. instead the board declares that entire 19-block quote an area in need of rehabilitation. that doesn't mean that's impossible for the rockefeller group to get what it wants. it's another signal that zimmer's team isn't going to roll over for them. now here's what this all has been building toward. here's the other thing that was happening while david samson's crew was push fg are the rockefeller project in hoboken. all zimmer was applying for money. and right after sandy hit in hoboken's darkest hour christi came to town and pledged and promised residents they can count on him. >> i spoke to the mayor and told her that hoboken is in the front of my mind and whenever there's anicy sis tense needed here, we will be here to help. >> it's in the wake of that visit that they submitted seven rounds of attempt asking for over $100 million in found. city was asking for storm surge coastal protection money for backup generators, these sorts of things. remember, this is a city that was 80% under water during sandy. there's also a vital economic and transportation hub in new jersey. mayor zimmer was applying for this federal money that christie controlled as rockefeller issue was coming to a head as wolf and samson was cranking up the heat and she seemed to be getting nowhere. the city filed its reports and made its claim and christie's people came back with less than 1% of what they had asked for. they gave them enough to defray the cost of one backup generator. they had another pool for roufrry grants $1.8 billion in all. hoboken got $200,000. it was enough to do a study. please governor were zimmer wrote in the letter we need your help. i have tried to assure hoboken residents that we would be treated fairly because you've always treated ho back enfairly in the past. zimmer says there was no response to that letter. that was the same day that the hoboken board did not adopt the redevelopment plan for the rockefeller building. on may 15th there they were the lieutenant governor of new jersey and zon zimmer at the hoboken shop right. you can see them in the picture there. zimmer told us that bollwage pulled them apart and said if you want the sandy money you need to get the rockefeller project going. that's what kim told her that day and she's not just saying it to us now. when it happened she was so shocked that she wrote it down in her personal diary which she has shared with us. here is how she describeds the threat, quote from it. at the end of the big tour and shop right she pulls me aside with no one else around and says i need to move grard with the rockefeller project. the word is you're against it and you need to move it forward or we're not going to be able to help you. i know it's not right. these things should not be connected but they are. if you tell anyone i said that i will deny it. this is what the mayor of hoboken said chris christie's lieutenant governor told her. she goes on to said i don't know all of the details but all i know is the impression you with against this project and you have to move it forward. zimmer tells a second story in that may 17th industry. it's about an accounting that had taken place before on may 16th of last year with richard kons stabl. he had replaced kim as the hunt governor. they sitting on the stage together as a public meeting regarding sandy. you can see them right there. you can see dawn zimmer sitting there and this is what she writes happened. we're miked up with only panel lists around us and probably the sound team is listening and he says i hear you are against the rockefeller project. i say i am not against the project. oh really? everyone believes that you are against it. the buzz is you are against it. if you move that forward, the money would start flowing to you. her handwritten words convey a human reaction to that. it was emotional about governor chris, i thought he was honest and moral, i thought he was different. this morning i find out he's cut from the same corrupt cloth. i'm so disappointed. it literally brings tears to my eyes. it all came crashing down over the last week. my beloved governor who wants to run for president, i cannot understand it. why is he so concerned about rockefeller? what has he promised them? i cannot figure it out but vi no option but to stand up to him. you have to move it forward. that's what chris christie's governor told her about the rockefeller plan. think back to that massive corruption takedown that snared the last mayor of hoboken. make sure you expedite my stuff is what the undercover developer told him in exchange for the cash. when pete said yes so that in 2009 and when a bunch of other new jersey politicians did too, it helped make chris christie governor. now we have the mayor saying that high ranking members of chris christie's administration told her you have to move it forward. you have to move that rockefeller development project forward, you have to expedite it if you want to get your sandy money. that was last may. now here we are in january 2014, the rockefeller project still isn't moving forward, hoboken still doesn't have the sandy money it desperately needs. but now dawn skimzimmer is speaking out and it offers a disturbing portrait of how and why chris christie administration exercises its power. hit was his administration that put them in touch with the port authority. it is the port authority now chaired by david samson whose law firm represents the rockefeller group. and now they're trying to use sandy money to give david samson's firm what it wants. because if what dawn zimmer says is true it shows how the christie administration and the new jersey port authority can team up to serve each ooer's political interests even if it means denying sandy funds to a city that desperately needs them. we have contacted all of the parties involved here. we'll have their responses and the mayor of hoboken dawn zimmer is going to join us live at this table right after this. i'm tony siragusa and i'm training guys who leak a little, to guard their manhood with new depend shields and guards. the discreet protection that's just for guys. now, it's your turn. get my training tips at guardyourmanhood.com is this the bacon and cheese diet? this is the creamy chicken corn chowder. i mean, look at it. so indulgent. did i tell you i am on the... 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