0 when all is said and done, i wanted to go to the congo and i did. good evening, everyone. tonight breaking news. what a document pileup reveals about the new jersey traffic tieup that has governor chris christie on the defensive. early indications the e-mails between officials show they were actively trying to hide a political motive. also tonight, what happens when a researcher studying the brains of psychopathic killers finds out that he has got the brain of a psychopath? later, forget about that fun ship cruise our gone to pot series takes you inside colorado's booming marijuana tourism business where the only rule is, don't bogart the joint. we begin with the bridge traffic scandal and the breaking news about the political motives for the whole mess. there's a new stack of documents out that suggests some of the players knew they were inflicting pain and took steps to shield themselves from any blowback. the documents come from the state assembly committee that's investigating the affair. more than 2,000 pages of e-mails, letters and other correspondence. a lot to go through. no smoking gun right now, perhaps, but clear indications at this point that chris christie's top appointee to the agency as well as another christie appointee were aware that closing several lanes of traffic leading to the george washington bridge could cause political fallout. they also reveal that state officials were made aware that the traffic was potentially affecting public safety. again, though, no smoking gun like the one that touched off the scandal in the first place. christie aide bridget kelly's e-mail to port authority david wildstein -- wild stein is gone from his job take the fifth. when asked about the affair governor christie fired kelly yesterday as you may know. she may soon be called to give testimony. that could be interesting of course. a source telling cnn "it's widely held in trenton this traffic mess wasn't her order." whose order was it? more now on kelly and the scandal and joe johns who's been carefully weighed through them. >> reporter: anderson, there's a question already about whether there was an attempt to conceal what was going on from public discussion. an e-mail ex changes dated september 13th. patrick foy port authority official terminated the lane closures. bill baroni, christie appointed port authority official who resigned in december over the controversy replied to the e-mail saying he was on his way to office to discuss and there could be no public discourse on the controversy. in response foy wrote bill that's precisely the problem. there's been no public discourse on this. now, this paper trail also shows at least one other member of governor christie's senior staff who hasn't been named publicly was forwarded an e-mail detailing the extent of the problems on the bridge. however, we don't know whether that staffer actually read that document, really no indication she was involved in any political retribution, anderson. >> this appears to be -- go ahead, jeff. >> reporter: no, no. the other thing i wanted to mention is, the mayor question is a huge question, anderson. and i know a lot of people have been interested in that, the mayor of fort lee, telling people he was being blamed for the problem with the bridge. and he wrote that the port authority police were blaming him. >> so it does appear to be a political vendetta against the mayor of fort lee, democrat would endorsed christie's owe upon intercept last year's gubernatorial election. you've actually found an interesting document related to the mayor talking about who was being blamed for the traffic nightmare. >> reporter: yeah. well, this was actually a letter that was written by the mayor. and he wrote it to the top port authority official bill baroni i had talked about earlier who's already resigned. and the mayor was sort of drawing this conclusion on his own that this was being done to make him look bad. he said there were punitive overtones associated with it. so the mayor obviously had some real concerns about that, anderson. >> all right, joe, wading through a lot of documents today. thanks very much. i want to continue the discussion right now. joining us now to talk about the growing implications of all this senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin and senior political analyst david gergen. jeff no smoking gun. there's still a lot of questions. is it going to take immunity from say the u.s. attorney for someone like bridget kelly to actually testify? >> absolutely. i think the action here was really going to shift to someone named paul fishman who's probably not a familiar name to most people. he's the u.s. attorney in new jersey. and he's going to have to make the decision, does he give immunity to the two key figures at this point? kelly and wildstein? because they're the ones who can explain what went on here, who ordered this bridge -- these lanes shut down? how did this all happen? documents themselves don't explain themselves by and large. you need human beings to explain what they mean. and they're the key figures. they're the the ones who can say if christie was involved or who's was involved. and it looks like, certainly for wildstein and probably for kelly as well, they're not going to speak unless they get immunity. >> what's involved for the u.s. attorney to consider immunity? >> it's really up to him. he has no legal barrier to it. but he has to make a judgment in good faith, in good conscience, that this is relevant to a criminal investigation. and that's not a simple question. because for all that this is politically controversial, it's not clear what laws you could say might have been broken here. he can't give immunity -- >> you don't see evidence of a federal crime? >> i don't. i don't obviously have access to everything that the u.s. attorney will have access to. but unless he can say this is relevant to a federal criminal investigation, he can't give immunity. that's a pretty low bar, relevant to an investigation. but i don't know if they're there yet. and that's the judgment that fishman is going to have to make. and that's going to be a critical one to determining whether we'll learn from the key figures what they knew and when they knew it. >> david, it certainly seems like this is going to drag out for awhile. what does that mean politically for the governor? i mean, in the immediate future he's supposed to be hitting the road next week to help raise money for republican candidates. >> sure. i think as jeffrey's comments suggest this will go on. as we say in the business, this story has legs. and that's not good news for governor christie. it just is going to further penetrate the public consciousness. if it were a two-day story it would go away. it appears to be a two or three or four-week story depending on the investigation. legislative inquiries, press trying to see if there are other examples of quote bullying. so the story does have -- i think does have legs. and that is going to be difficult for him. but i would say this, anderson. the way he's handled it, and john king made this a standard two or three days ago the first 24 to 48 hours, he's handled it pretty well. i think he stood up and was contrite the way he should be. apologized the way he should. fired people the way he should. and so far there is no smoking gun. so i think absent some new evidence that is contrary to what we know now, he's going to ride it out as governor. i think that much is pretty clear tonight. what is unclear is on his political campaign for the presidency he's definitely take an hit. is it above the water line or below the water line? we don't know. he's going to be out looking for donors. today stanley truckenmiller, a very big hedge fund person in new york and major philanthropist, came out swinging for christie. thought that he was even more convinced he should be president [ laughter ] >> well, it's important for chris christie to keep that wall street support. it could be very helpful to him in the long run. so i don't think we know enough yet about the long term. but in terms of the presidential. but we do know this is very close to the water line. we don't know if it's above or below. >> jeff, what do you think? you the other night when this in the heat of the moment when this was all breaking you, were saying you thought chris christie was done no matter what. >> oh, i still think this is very very bad for his presidential ambitions. i think david's right that if we don't learn anything more, he's going to survive as governor. if he were really implicated, if the documents said he had ordered this lane closure i really think he would not be governor for very much longer. there doesn't appear to be any threat of that. but this out there, as the major story that people know about him, outside of new jersey except for maybe his performance during hurricane sandy, it's a very bad thing. the best thing you can say is that he didn't know some of his top aides were engaged in this sort of political vendetta. that's not exactly a letter of recommendation. and for anyone to say, this convinces them that he should be president, i think that's kind of absurd. maybe it doesn't disqualify him. but the idea that this is somehow a positive seems pretty crazy. >> anderson, the interesting thing is that republicans for awhile now have been really licking their chops that if hillary clinton were the nominee on the democratic side in '16 they could throw benghazi at her and really push it home. now the democrats are going to feel, you go with benghazi, we'll go with the bridge and we think we'll beat you. >> right. well, we'll see. david gergen, appreciate it. jeff toobin, still more documents to go through. it's fascinating. more now on the woman everyone wants to hear from, bridget ann kelly. until this week only new jersey political junkies knew her name. now it's rush hour to find out more about her. the answer tonight from erin mcpike. >> reporter: the divorced mother of four worked for chris christie since 2010 and was appointed his deputy chief of staff in april. about five months later she sent a career-ending message "time for some traffic problems in fort lee." the e-mail certainly seems incriminating. but those who know kelly say they doubt the dedicated staffer could have orchestrated this on her own. >> i think a lot of people find it hard to believe that she was acting as a rogue political operative conducting this operation regarding the bridge solely by herself. >> reporter: here in new jersey, bridget ann kelly has been a staple of republican politics for more than a decade. she began as a legislative aide for republican assemblyman david russo and eventually rose to become his chief of staff in 2002. she joined the christie camp as director of legislative affairs and again rose through the ranks to become deputy chief of staff in just three years. >> she was more of a liaison, one that kind of worked behind the scenes with the authorities in the legislature and a taskmaster, somebody who got the job done. but not as a political operative. >> reporter: the infamous september bridge closures referenced in her messages affected emergency vehicles as well as local commerce, and snarled the city of fort lee in what appears to be a petty way to punish fort lee's mayor for not supporting governor christie's re-election. no one has seen any sign of kelly at a ramsey, new jersey home. and the governor's office scrubbed her name from the web site this morning. >> do people feel badly for her now? >> i think there are some. i think people are waiting to find out more information before they make any judgment about it. >> reporter: erin mcpike, cnn, trenton, new jersey. >> let's talk about it on twitter @andersoncooper. #ac360. up next the mother of that cursing toddler has been called every name in the book. now she's answering the people who say she's a bad mom. we'll talk about that. later developments in the chemical spill that left hundreds of thousands of people with toxic tap water. details ahead. your eyes really are unique. in fact, they depend on a unique set of nutrients. 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