great. great. great. (all) great! i love logistics. a federal prosecutor, the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york is this man. he s a very busy person and a very successful prosecutor. last week his office helped secure a more than $5 billion settlement, billion with a b against a company called anadarko petroleum. that s the most any company has ever paid for spill toxic waste in this country. we ll have more on that coming up actually. but that multi billion dollar settlement that was last week. the week before that he won a conviction against osama bin laden s son-in-law and spokesman. the attorney general of the united states came to new york city to congratulate mr. bharara on that landmark conviction and to point out that, yes, we can successfully and safely prosecute terrorists in the united states.
briefly that day. i don t have any recollection of him saying anything. if the attorneys general for new jersey, new york, and the united states were all to agree to clothe mr. wildstein with an immunity, i think that you d find yourselves in a far different position with respect to information he could provide. david wildstein is the person who originated this idea and orchestrated it. bridget kelly and david wildstein to our knowledge aren t talking to the u.s. attorney s office because they re the focus of that investigation and in our experience as former federal prosecutors it s unusual for people who are the focus of an investigation to be going in and telling their story. today we learned that david wildstein is cooperating with the u.s. attorney for new jersey, paul fishman, according to a report from esquire magazine. joining me now is scott rather, the writer for esquire who reported the david wildstein news.
this is what i will testify to and the u.s. attorney then evaluates that, evaluates its worth in the investigation. the other version you were talking about is something that can happen even if wildstein is not cooperating, he s saying he s not going to testify, he s not going to give you anything, at that point the u.s. attorney can basically grant this full immunity zmerngs you re saying the judge basically orders him to testify because he now has full immunity, orders him to testify to the grand jury, and if he doesn t he goes to jail. it s a contempt issue. but what you lay out in the formal immunity discussion, it doesn t happen by happenstance. the u.s. attorney s office has knowledge that you re going to claim a fifth amendment right in the grand jury. they go ahead and seek from the department of justice authorization to grant that immunity. the judges the judge of the court is informed that you ll be coming. and so if there s an issue about
immunity from prosecution, david wildstein would sing like a bird. he would tell all he knows about what happened in the christie administration in regard to that bridge. well, it appears that that may have just happened, and that story is next. [ male announcer ] hey, look at you! you re an emailing, texting, master of the digital universe. but do you protect yourself? apparently not. when you access everything, you give everyone access to everything about you. but that s ok. while you do your thing. [ alert rings ] we ll be here at lifelock, doing our thing. watching out for things your credit card alone can t. [ alert rings ] and relentlessly protecting your identity. get lifelock protection and live life free.
are you aware of when the grand jury actually began hearing testimony in this matter? i have no information about that. as i said, we re here because we were subpoenaed to be here today and we re here because we were required to cooperate and that s what we re doing. does mike have any information about governor christie s personal knowledge or direct role i m not going to comment about anything with respect to that. we re here, we re here to answer questions and that s what michael did today. governor chris christie of new jersey, his spokesman, michael drewniak, spoke to a federal criminal grand jury in the bridge scandal on friday. that news was broken by abc news. joining us now is reporter lisa brennan, a contributor to main justice. he s reported on chris christie since his time as a u.s. attorney in new jersey. just before midnight last night miss brennan broke the news that david wildstein has been meeting with the u.s. attorney s office in new jersey about the scanda