is billionaire aubrey mcclendon. he's the outspoken, charzmatic scion of one of america's founders and a founder of chesapeake. chesapeake could be the next enron, or worldcom. chesapeake energy is second only to exxonmobil in drilling for natural gas in this country. more than 13,000 americans work for mcclendon, enjoying perks, which according to reuters includes on-site botox treatments. chesapeake also boasts a campus with three restaurants and a 70,000-square foot facility with a rock climbing wall. it may have been among the first signs that something doesn't end up. mcclendon has often made grandiose promises that aren't backed by reality. >> at a minimum, i think they can create a million jobs over the next few years. >> the "they" he's referring to is a fund chesapeake was launching. now, mcclendon is not a household name, but what he's fighting for is. even as natural gas prices have plunged by 50% over the past year, he's been a believer in gas as the fuel of america's future. and some people love him for it. others, not so much. "rolling stone" calls him the world's biggest fraccer. as a matter of fact, every head line they do is world's biggest fracker. but when pushed on the question of whether fracking chemicals pollute drinking water, in this case by "60 minutes," mcclendon didn't mince words. >> you don't drink draino for a reason, but you have draino in your house. if you want to define it as nasty, go ahead. >> his obsession may have gone too far. he's front-page material now for papers like the "wall street journal." thanks to his perks, which include more than $1 billion in loans, loans used to give mcclendon a personal financial state in every well chesapeake drills. and the company drills a heck of a lot of wells, 2000 every year. mcclendon says this interest keeps his arrangement aligned with shareholders. because he's got a personal interest in drilling good wells, right? the s.e.c. may think otherwise. that's the tip of the iceberg. mcclendon did at least ten deals worth almost $6 billion, where chesapeake got cash up front for natural gas it hadn't even produced or found yet. a wall street executive took one look at these deals, which are complex and difficult for investors to even find out exist, and told me today of mcclendon, he's done. research now says that bankruptcy is a real possibility for chesapeake and that the company could soon be $7 billion in the hole. even supporters of audrey mcclendon say he did not wrong, gooit accuses the the board. a former senator and oklahoma governor who said yes, yes, yes to everything, including pay of about $200 million over the past five years. take a look at this. we have stumbled upon this today. a document entitled chesapeake leadership in action, this chart compares mcclendon's 2011 compensation to other natural gas executives with, and they said, hey, look, it's down 15%. sure, compared to the year he made $112 million. 2008, it was the sixth biggest pay package in america. this is 2012, right, post-lehman, post-bear stearns, post-enron. how can one of the biggest companies in america still be run like a personal fiefdom. and considering these deals have been going on for years, how can boards and regulators seemingly still be asleep at the switch. andy and john avalon here. it's a pretty amazing story. not a lot of people know who this man is, but when they hear that, they say, how can this happen? >> it's amazing. aubrey is super smart, he's charming, he has this business, you know, well in hand, he really knows what he's talking about, but he definitely has the board of directors in his pocket. they're the board of enablers. the price of natural gas has really gone down, and that has really hurt his country, and he's relentless. he's borrowing money, constantly trying to get more stuff, more houses, more land, he wants to be king of the world, one of these people, yet he gets rubber stamped by the board, for maybe the past decade, and now coming home to roost. >> have you been hearing? it all comes down to people trusting whether they want to do deals with you. >> people in the oil places i've talked to in oklahoma say, we're starting to back off. not to want to do deal with chesapeake, not to want to compete against him because they've got very sharp elbows, someone told me a little sleazy. people on wall street also wanting to pull back, not invest with him either. >> and he's a big donor, john, and also republicans. >> there are two republicans on his board. there's nothing wrong with that. but the real point is just the red flags that have been clustering around him for a long time. here in 2008, the year he had this huge pay package, he did a $500 million margin call that sickened his shareholder price 40%. that is doing violence to your shareholders in the near term. and got away with it scot-free. according to reuters, he made over $1 billion in personal loans, he's received in the last three years. now, if that's not a sign of imbalance in a ceo, i don't know what is. how many times we've got to learn this lesson over and over. it's privatizing losses and socializing losses. >> and yes, he's the founder, as you say. a lot of people give him a lot of slack for that. you're the founder, you're the one who came up with this whole idea. but no one ever checked him and shareholders, a lot of people -- this is the second biggest natural gas company in america. a lot of people own this in their 401(k), a lot of other people's money getting slammed. >> they say, if you don't like it, share your stock. but i challenge the directors to explain the full implications of these loans to the bottom line, to the net profits of these companies, and i will bet you that they cannot do it. there's unintended consequences, and as your guy said, your source, very complicated stuff. and it gets more complicated and more complicated all the time. but, basically, it has everything to do with the price of natural gas being $2 per thousand cubic feet now, which is way down. they're not making any money. that's the real price. the prices are going up, aubrey's okay, prices going down, aubrey's not okay. >> instead, he just doubles down, doubles down. how can this happen, after all of those examples i gave, people say, seriously, this still happens? crony boards, huge pay package? it doesn't matter how smart you are and whether you founded the company, how does this still happen? >> clearly the incentive structures are out of whack. we've seen this over and over. here's the case of a board that doesn't seem to be doing its job and just policing the executive in question. what's been done is absolutely indefensible. and part of the problem is, as americans, we pay a lot of attention when they're sex scandals, but when they're financial scandals, we get a little bit confused by all the numbers, no matter how many people get hurt in their bottom line. >> here's the other thing, erin. when the highest point of your moral compass is that you are challenging the letter of the law, right? in other words, you're going to push the envelope of the letter of the law as far as it'll go, that's your moral compass, excuse me, you're going to get in trouble. that's bad stuff. never mind the spirit of the law. there's no spirit of the law here at all. >> we'll leave it as that as the bottom line. thanks very much to both of you. we'll keep following this. tomorrow we'll get earnings from chesapeake. all right, "outfront" 2 is next. still "outfront," pushing forward. >> i believe america is on the way up. >> al qaeda's secret stash. >> only the beginning. >> all this "outfront" when we come back. sarah... will you marry me? i think we should see other people. in fact, i'm already seeing your best friend, justin. ♪ i would've appreciated a proactive update on the status of our relationship. who do you think i am, tim? quicken loans? at quicken loans, we provide you with proactive updates on the status of your home loan. and our innovative online tools ensure that you're always in the loop. one more way quicken loans is engineered to amaze. what ? customers didn't like it. so why do banks do it ? hello ? hello ?! if your bank doesn't let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello ? ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense. ♪ lord, you got no reason ♪ you got no right ♪ ♪ i find myself at the wrong place ♪ [ male announcer ] the ram 1500 express. ♪ it says a lot about you. ♪ in a deep, hemi-rumble sort of way. guts. glory. ram. "outfront" ahead, the death of osama bin laden used as a campaign tactic and a confession in the cyanide murder. first, "outfront" 2 tonight, a cnn exclusive. chilling new information coming to light about al qaeda's future plans. now, there was a break coming when german intelligence got its hands on a microchip after arresting an al qaeda operative late last year. when al qaeda agents first looked at it, it had a porn graphic movie on the ship, but dig deeper and discovered a treasure-trove of information hidden beyond that, including what the group's next attack might be. nic robertson has that exclusive story and he's "outfront" tonight. what did you find when you had a chance to go through all of this information? >> perhaps one of the most staggering documents in there is a document written by a man called rasheed ralph, perhaps one of al qaeda's best plotters and planners. he was responsible for the attacks in london, the 777-21. the liquid airline plot that would have blown up nine passenger jets in 2006. he has gone on to plot other attacks, including new york. his accounts of his behind-the-scenes control and efforts to put those attacks through. and one of the most staggering things in that was the fact that one of those plots that failed in london only failed because of one tiny missed telephone call. but it shows al qaeda's skill and its dedication and it also shows that it's beginning to lose some of its core players, erin. >> and you talk about rasheed ralph, obviously, he was killed in a drone attack. how much did that set al qaeda back? and do you get a sense from this of whether key players have been eliminated by some of the successful attacks in pakistan and in afghanistan and in yemen? >> absolutely. rasheed ralph according to u.s. counterterrorism officials was at the top of his game, and that he's been missed by al qaeda already. in fact, one of the reasons that najibullah zazi was picked up in new york for an attack he planned there, just days before he was going to pull that attack off, was because rasheed ralph had been killed. and the techniques he used to avoid detection weren't being employed by the people who were replacing him. zazi was one of his planned attacks. but they would like to attack cruise ships, execute passengers, upload the videos to the internet. they want cheap, low-budget, easy to pull off attacks as well as the bigger attacks. it would like to get its recruits back into europe and the united states faster than it is at the moment, so it can confuse counterterrorism officials by having a lot of active players, if you will, in the field, and al qaeda also wants to continue to try and pull off a mumbai style attack, as we saw in india, 164 people killed by a handful of gunman. that's the sort of thing that they're trying to do, and we've seen through these documents and through al qaeda's actions that they continue to pursue this. this is a massive insight into what al qaeda's doing and why it's doing it, erin? >> nic robertson, thank you very much. all right, president obama unveiled a new campaign video today. it actually has something to do with al qaeda. and the seven-minute video chronicles some of his accomplishments. osama bin laden is on that list. carville and fromme, "outfront" next. [ male announcer ] this is lawn ranger -- eden prairie, minnesota. in here, the landscaping business grows with snow. to keep big winter jobs on track, at&t provided a mobile solution that lets everyone from field workers to accounting, initiate, bill, and track work in real time. you can't live under a dome in minnesota, that's why there's guys like me. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ coming up at the half hour, the new legal tactic being used by george zimmerman's lawyer tonight, and a new development on the exotic animals taken and shot at an ohio farm. "outfront" 3, one year since the death of osama bin laden. the obama administration taking heat for turning his death into a campaign talking point, adding fuel to the fire. an ad that came out today, with a new slogan, forward. it touts obama's achievements in job creation, health care, and bin laden. >> tonight, i can report to the american people and to the world that the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden, the leader of al qaeda, and a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. >> cnn political contributor james carville is here, david fromme here with me in new york. james, obviously not just that ad. you saw bill clinton, former president clinton, making the same point about osama bin laden. the white house giving nbc access to the situation room, of course, to, you know, tout this, tout this great achievement. >> right. >> army going to put osama bin laden's personal writings on display. is the president going over the line? >> no. there was a legitimate difference. romney was critical of the effort to go after bin laden. the secretary of defense, bob gates, who's not even a democrat, said it's the guttiest call he's ever seen any president make. and actually, i think the white house is delighted by all of this controversy sounding this. i'm not sure that there's a lot of votes in this, but everybody looks sort of like, what's going on? remember rudy giuliani and 9/11, the mission accomplished. people are sort of taken credit for accomplishments for a long time. it's nothing new in politics, but the president jumped right back if the fray. i think they were very happy to the response to this. >> it's interesting, the president did comment on the whole controversy. i love this sound bite, because he uses the word "people," the way people only use it when they're referring to pattern they don't want to name by name. here he is. >> i just recommend that everybody take a look at people's previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into pakistan and take out bin laden. i assume that people meant what they said when they said it. >> "people," it happens to be person, not they, singular, he, mitt romney. and here is what mitt romney said that the president was referring to. >> governor, you would have gone after bin laden? >> of course. >> you would have given the order, governor? >> well, of course. >> is it criticism of the obama administration -- >> even jimmy carter would have given that order. >> and, his other comment was, david fromme, it's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. so perhaps a little bit different than what jimmy carter would have made, but still doesn't look good. >> let's give the president total credit for obama -- president obama, total credit for killing bin laden, conceded. now let's talk about the major foreign policy commitment this president made that is not mentioned in that video, which is afghanistan. what mitt romney was talking about back in 2007, which is that president obama, they be candidate obama, used the pursuit of bin laden to justify a massive escalation of the war in afghanistan. it is now all these years later, what has he got to show for it? so little, he doesn't mention it in his campaign advertising. that, if the killing of bin laden was the great successful foreign policy call of this administration, the decision to massively invest in afghanistan, something the bush administration tried to stay away from, and was massively criticized for, that is looking like the biggest mistake and failure. what have we got to show for it, for all of this amount of money later. and worst of all, because it was a commitment that the president, or the then candidate made in 2007 and '8, for political reasons, to get to the right of the administration, to have something that made it seem like he was getting to the right of an administration he was otherwise criticizing. >> james carville, though, the president does have the he got osama bin laden. so whether you agree or do not agree, it goes into that category of nuance, which is not a good place to be, right? >> i hope they don't get david as an adviser, because he's right. they shouldn't say, oh, jimmy carter would have done, they would just let it go. i'll go back to the point, i'm not sure there's a lot of votes here. everybody knows about this. sometimes i think the white house or the president's people put this out just to egg a fight on and they got that. the romney people and the right should have never engaged in this thing. there's no new information here for the voter. the voter knows they got bin laden. the voter gives the president deserved credit for it and the romney people would be smarter to talk about somebody else, it looks like sour grapes to me. i think the white house is happy with the whole thing. >> what the romney people can talk about is president obama said he would put his eye on the ball in afghanistan. that's where his eye has been. and what have we got for it? and not only that, but here's one other, i think, very disturbing consequence of the bin laden raid. it now is obvious that pakistan was sheltering bin laden. the pakistani military was sheltering him. that's apparent to everybody. >> yes, isi. >> we are not talk about that because we are so dependent on pakistan as long as we have this massive, new, increased commitment to afghanistan. and the president's decision to commit to afghanistan made the united states dependent on pakistan, such that even when we catch them red-handed, doing the worst thing that anybody who has ever claimed to be an ally of the united states has ever done to the united states, this president cannot talk about it, cannot act on it. >> quickly, before we go, an op-ed in "the washington post" getting a lot of buzz. "we've been setting washington politics in congress for more than 40 years. we've never seen it this disthe functional. we've criticized both parties in the past. today, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the republican party." that's a really damning thing. >> congress is dysfunctional and it's been getting worse, but it's worse every cycle. it's worse today than it was four years ago. we are on a downhill spiral. i don't know that it's helpful to point to one party. i think one of the reasons it's so bad now because of the miserable economic conditions. but, you know, they're right -- last summer's debt ceiling crisis was driven by the republicans and that was a near-death experience. >> before we go, james carville, can i ask you a question? what's that cat? >> that's an lsu blue devil -- >> that's a dog with a real identity crisis. >> right. and this is -- louisiana is 200 years old today. it was admitted to the union april 30th, 1812, and commemorating that, this is my friend who designed this. and happy birthday to louisiana. >> all right. i love it. i love it! although i got to say -- >> maybe a snarl -- >> -- that dog looks like a cat! that's all i can say. thanks to all of you. "outfront" 4 is next. still "outfront," the great escape. >> obviously i'm aware of the press reports. >> the reality is even harsher than the stories that have been circulating. widow and the beasts. >> can we ask you a quick question? all of this "outfront" when we come back. whwhatat m m