jenna: wow. thank you. jon: some brand new developments in those lane closures on the george washington bridge that have led to so many controversy. new jersey lawmakers are hearing from one of governor christie s longest serving aides and he could shed light on when the governor found out about the lane closures. we have that story. hello. well, he s the highest ranking member of governor chris christie s administration to testify so far. he s chief of staff and he was the one that mr. christie directed to find out what happened with the george washington bridge lane closings. he testified this morning about various meetings he had with the governor about the lane closings after they were made public, including a meeting at the new jersey governor s mansion. mr. christie asked him to look into what happened and who knew about it. christie told him to check with bridget ann kelly, the now fired
your behalf ordered the lane closings? i have absolutely information to believe that. and i made it very clear to everyone on my senior staff that if anyone had any knowledge about this, they need to come forward and tell me about it and they all ensurh assure med that don t. according to his own chief of staff, he had just learned bridget kelly did have, at least, not knowledge. another bigamistry mystery in that s all of them. joining me now is brian murphy, assistant professor, and in houston, criminal defense attorney brian weiss. thank you both for joining me. thank you, rev. brian murphy, you were at the hearing all day today. so there was a difference between what o dowd said today and what the governor, governor christie, being who i m talking about, said in december.
holding the bag. it s very interesting, the conflicting portraits of bridget kelly that has emerged. when christina rena testified earlier before the committee, she talked about how bridget kelly who was someone who couldn t make a decision on her own, she couldn t have possibly acted alone. today you heard something entirely different. kevin o dowd said she had nothing to do with the lane closings. she said no. why? he was a hard worker. he trusted her. she had never lied to him. you heard something very different today than you heard a few weeks ago. and just imagine this. the entire george washington bridge apparatus obeyed bridget kelly when she said shut down the lanes. what s the context of that? as you just said, angela, very well. who gave her all this authority. all this political license to do something like this? where did all that come from? this assumption that she can call the shots all by herself at the same time they try to say, she has no power. well, she shut down
out, walks in on this meeting at the governor s mansion with bill stepien, asks bridget kelly, gets a denial, has a meeting with bill barone, tells him that he s toast, but tells him also that he s going to get set up with a new job with another political consultant, i think christie is tying up a bunch of loose ends and preparing to wait out the clock for only a few more weeks until the subpoena power expires, then they think they re going to be scot-free. tell me about the reporting. what is the news value of today s testimony from the a.p. s point of view? i think first of all, this is the highest ranking christie official to testify. and so this is someone we hadn t heard from before. we had seen some of his interview notes in the mastro report. this is a chance to hear him up front, get him to answer questions firsthand. we learned also he said, like the others, he had no direct involvement in the lane closings
kelly s colleague, there s sure to be plenty of questions. not just about them, but what about their boss chris christie and how he was running things. this is the legislative committee obviously, but of the four people that i mentioned, if to you re the u.s. attorney, which of their pieces of testimony, assuming they comply, would you be most interested in? i would actually be interested in christina renna. i say that because we know what foye is going to say. foye is going to say he found out the about the lane closings, he was furious, he writes a scathing e-mails. he has an opinion federal and state laws are violated. but i think u.s. attorneys are going to have their own opinion and don t need him to say what the law is. and i think we can also expect that drewniak is probably going to be pretty protective of chris christie, notwithstanding his fascinating language at times which, of course, is something that paints a picture of a mean spirit that could be relevant at some date