Russia's ambassador to the United States says Russia won't leave Crimea because it's now Russian territory again. 
 
 Sergey Kislyak pushed back at a question on ABC's "This Week: from host George Stephanopoulos, asking him about recent developments. 
 
 "What kind of pullback from Crimea are you talking about? We are now in the territory of the Russian Federation," Kislyak said. 
 
 (WATCH: Sunday shows in 90 seconds) 
 
 The ambassador made his point several times. 
 
 "Crimea is a part of Russian Federation," he said, before Stephanopoulos moved on to the possibility of a Russian excursion into Ukraine. 
 
 "We have said so many times that we have no intent, no interest in crossing the border," he said. "We have our forces conducting exercises in the territory of Russian Federation." 
 
 The ambassador also had a retort to President Barack Obama's remark last week that Russia is a "regional power acting out of weakness." 
 
 "If you consider Russia a regional power, look at the region we are in, from Europe to Asia," he said, noting Russia's importance in the world. 
 
 "We certainly are not going to overstretch anyway." 
 
 Kislyak expressed some hope about a diplomatic breakthrough, but repeated an answer that has given the U.S. pause. 
 
 "We understand what can be of help to Ukrainian people, because the biggest problem ... is between Ukrainian temporary government and the rest of the country," he said, noting the need for a constitutional revision. 
 
 Read more about: Russia, Ukraine, Crimea ||||| Drewniak, Kelly, Stepien among 20 subpoenaed in GWB scandal 
 
 STAFF WRITERS 
 
 The Record 
 
 STAFF PHOTO Christie’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien, left, his former deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly, center, and spokesman Michael Drewniak. 
 
 Full Coverage: Chris Christie and the GWB lane closure controversy 
 
 
 
 Twenty subpoenas were directed at key members of Governor Christie’s administration and campaign on Thursday, demanding that documents related to the George Washington Bridge controversy be given to a legislative panel investigating the origins of a traffic jam apparently manufactured out of spite. 
 
 Related: Christie bridge scandal: Lawyers may have conflict of interest, Port Authority says 
 
 Among those issued subpoenas, according to a source: Christie’s former Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly and his former campaign manager Bill Stepien, as well as spokesman Michael Drewniak, Director of Communications Maria Comella, chief counsel Charles McKenna, Chief of Staff Kevin O’Dowd and director of the authorities unit Regina Egea. Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, a New York appointee, was also issued a subpoena along with several other agency officials. The governor was not on the list of 17 individuals and three organizations. 
 
 Related: Christie GWB scandal: Names of 18 served with subpoenas 
 
 View and download the recent subpoenas in the GWB scandal 
 
 The subpoenas went out on Thursday evening, after a day of rapid developments in the escalating scandal: the formal creation of two state legislative panels that each have subpoena power and are conducting parallel investigations; the announcement that Christie’s office had hired its own legal counsel; and a preliminary finding by a powerful U.S. senator that there is “zero evidence” the lane closings had a legitimate purpose. 
 
 Still unknown is what motivated Kelly, who was fired by Christie last week, to send the message, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” to a Christie loyalist at the Port Authority, apparently setting off the closure of two of the borough’s three local access lanes for four days in September. One of the aims of the investigation is to determine if others in the governor’s office were involved in the planning or a coverup, as questions arose. Last week Christie also cut ties with Stepien, who in private messages directed insults at Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor, who declined to endorse the governor for reelection. 
 
 Several of the others issued subpoenas are still working in the governor’s office, and no evidence has surfaced that they were involved in planning the lane closures. 
 
 Christie on Thursday, attempting to regain his footing after a bruising week of speculation about his political future, highlighted rebuilding efforts in a Shore community devastated by Superstorm Sandy. His original visit to Stafford Township was canceled last week on the same day his office was linked to the closings. 
 
 Back in Trenton, some of his Republican allies said the web of investigations — one in the Assembly and another in the Senate, in addition to reviews by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Port Authority inspector general and a U.S. Senate Committee — would prove costly. They also worried that Democrats would turn it into a purely partisan exercise. One Republican called the two state legislative investigations “baffling.” 
 
 The special counsel hired by the Assembly panel, the former federal prosecutor Reid Schar, will be paid $350 an hour, an agreement released on Thursday showed. That’s much less than the rate normally charged by his Chicago law firm, said the Democrat leading the Assembly inquiry, John Wisniewski of Sayreville. Schar successfully prosecuted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. 
 
 Christie’s office announced it had hired its own legal gun, another former federal prosecutor who was also the onetime chief of staff for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani has been one of Christie’s most staunch defenders during the controversy, saying he believes the governor had no involvement. Records show the attorney, Randy Mastro, has also represented the Port Authority, the agency that operates the George Washington Bridge and that Christie jointly controls with New York’s governor. 
 
 Thursday’s legal maneuvering coincided with the results of a preliminary inquiry by Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. It was based on information provided by the Port Authority showing the extensive protocols bypassed by David Wildstein, the Port Authority executive who ordered the lane closings after receiving Kelly’s message. Rockefeller said there was “zero evidence” in the Port Authority’s responses to his questions that there was a legitimate traffic study, the initial reason given for the lane closings, and one repeated by the Christie administration for months. 
 
 “No formal approval process to conduct the traffic study … was sought,” the Port Authority said in its response to Rockefeller. 
 
 Wildstein appeared before the state Assembly’s Transportation Committee last week, after receiving a subpoena to testify, but he refused to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Wildstein’s lawyer Alan Zegas told The Associated Press on Friday that there has not been any offer of immunity from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which is reviewing the matter. “If he has immunity from the relevant entities, he’ll talk,” Zegas said. 
 
 The Port Authority also told Rockefeller that former Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni did not get approval from the authority’s board before testifying before the same Assembly committee in December. During that hearing, Baroni brought photographs and charts to make the case that there was a legitimate traffic study. Some of the subpoenaed Christie administration officials apparently thought Baroni’s testimony was “great,” according to documents released last week. Baroni was not under oath. 
 
 The subpoenas issued on Thursday are for documents and do not require testimony under oath. Sworn testimony is a likely next step in the investigation, after members of the panel sift through documents. The deadline for turning over the documents is about two weeks from Thursday, Wisniewski said. 
 
 “We need to understand the circumstances that created the atmosphere that led that email to be sent,” he said, referring to Kelly’s email about traffic problems in Fort Lee. 
 
 The Republicans on the 12-member Assembly committee complained that the enabling legislation passed earlier in the day gave Wisniewski too much power over the panel, including the authority to issue subpoenas and control who can review the documents received. 
 
 “This sort of seems to constitute a committee of one,” said Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, whose district includes parts of Morris and Somerset counties. 
 
 The wide net cast by the Assembly committee’s latest round of subpoenas is not an indication that the committee has reason to believe a broader conspiracy exists, Wisniewski said. 
 
 “Twenty sounds like a large number,” he said. But, he added, “it is entirely possible on some of those subpoenas there will be absolutely no reason to go forward or ask any more questions.” 
 
 There were also concerns that the Assembly and Senate panels will step over each other. The Senate created its own committee on Thursday, headed by Loretta Weinberg, the Teaneck Democrat who doggedly attended Port Authority commissioner’s meetings for months when the controversy was barely on the radar of most officials in Trenton. 
 
 When asked what will happen if the Assembly and Senate committees both request the same people or documents Wisniewski said, “We will cross that bridge when we get to it.” 
 
 Staff Writers Michael Phillis and John Reitmeyer contributed to this article. ||||| Feds seek files from Christie's office; ex-aide Kelly won't turn over documents in response to subpoena 
 
 STAFF WRITERS 
 
 The Record 
 
 RECORD FILE PHOTO Former Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly. 
 
 Federal prosecutors investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closures have demanded documents from Governor Christie’s office, he said Monday, a development that puts him at the opposite end from the kind of probe he once led as the state’s hard-charging U.S. attorney. 
 
 See Kelly's response to the subpoena 
 
 Christie acknowledged the subpoenas during a radio interview Monday evening, as news broke that his former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, would not turn over documents in response to a subpoena issued by state lawmakers in a parallel investigation. An attorney for Kelly — who wrote the message “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” — cited Kelly’s constitutional protection against self-incrimination. She joins Christie’s campaign manager as the second person to put up a roadblock to an ongoing legislative probe. 
 
 Full coverage: Chris Christie and the GWB lane closure controversy 
 
 But the fact that federal prosecutors sent a subpoena to Christie’s office signaled that the more high-stakes federal investigation had taken a serious turn for the governor, who was considered a presidential contender only a few weeks ago. 
 
 Christie emphatically told listeners of his monthly radio show that he didn’t know about the lane closures beforehand and pledged to get to the bottom of them as he cooperates with subpoenas from both the legislative panel and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. 
 
 “Before these lanes were closed, I knew nothing about it,” he said on “Ask the Governor” on NJ 101.5 FM on Monday night. “I didn’t plan it. I didn’t authorize it. I didn’t approve it. I knew nothing about it.” 
 
 Christie spoke just two hours after the deadline for 18 individuals, his campaign and his office to respond to legislative subpoenas seeking emails, text messages and other documents related to the lane closures, which many Democrats believe were retribution against the Fort Lee mayor for not endorsing the Republican governor, who won reelection in a landslide last year. 
 
 Several individuals asked for extensions. But Michael Critchley Sr., an attorney for Kelly, notified the legislative panel Monday evening that she would not turn over documents. Kelly joins Christie’s former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, in invoking her constitutional right against self-incrimination. Stepien’s attorney said Friday that he would not turn over documents. 
 
 The information requested by the legislative panel, Critchley wrote Monday, “directly overlaps with a parallel federal grand jury investigation.” The letter also cites her right to privacy. In a brief phone interview, Critchley said his client had not received a subpoena from federal prosecutors. 
 
 Providing the committee with “unfettered access to, among other things, Ms. Kelly’s personal diaries, calendars and all of her electronic devices amounts to an inappropriate and unlimited invasion of Ms. Kelly’s personal privacy and would also potentially reveal highly personal confidential communications completely unrelated to the reassignment of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge,” Critchley wrote. 
 
 “I would hope they would share any information they have that would let me get to the bottom of it, but on the other hand, they have constitutional rights like everybody else and have the right to exercise them. There’s nothing I can do about that,” Christie said when asked on the radio program about her refusal to comply with the subpoena. 
 
 Christie, who said he fired Kelly because she lied to him, has also said he did not ask her why she apparently ordered the lanes closed. 
 
 The governor said he is cooperating with subpoenas from both the legislative panel and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. On the radio show, he said his office began turning over documents to the Joint Legislative Select Committee on Investigations on Monday and will do so on a rolling basis as they are located. 
 
 An attorney for his campaign said earlier in the day that it had received an extension while it seeks approval from the state Election Law Enforcement Commission to use campaign funds to pay for legal bills and to hire a document retention firm. The legislative panel also granted an extension to Christina Genovese Renna, who served as director of intergovernmental affairs under Kelly until she resigned Friday. 
 
 Christie also used the radio show to dispute a former political appointee’s assertion that he knew about the closures when they were happening, and he said he hired a high-powered law firm to carry out a swift investigation so he can get answers. 
 
 “I can’t wait for them to be finished so I can get the full story here,” he said. 
 
 Christie didn’t rule out that he might have heard about traffic but said he didn’t know there was a problem until Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority, sent an internal email, which was leaked to the press, questioning the closures. 
 
 Though the governor spoke at length about the September traffic jam, most callers to the show were seeking information on other issues, and Christie worked to put the incident behind him, saying he met with Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto for an hour and a half Monday to talk about their agenda for the year. 
 
 “They and I understand that our job is to run the state of New Jersey,” he said. 
 
 There was no mention on the show of criticism from Environment New Jersey that Christie’s administration pushed for a natural gas pipeline through the Pine¬lands, a protected area, because Genovese Renna’s husband works for the company. A spokes¬man for the governor called the idea “ludicrous,” and a company spokesman said Renna, president of South Jersey Industries, had nothing to do with the utility subsidiary responsible for the project. 
 
 In a joint statement Assemblyman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, and Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, who lead the legislative committee, said Monday that “numerous extensions have been granted to subpoena recipients.” Weinberg said she did not know who was given extensions, and a spokesman for Wisniewski declined to provide additional information. 
 
 “No documents will be released today,” the statement said. “The committee will announce its next step as soon as that course is decided.” 
 
 In an interview, Weinberg said the committee was discussing the decisions by Kelly and Stepien to invoke the Fifth. 
 
 “It’s frustrating when we’re trying to find the truth of the situation that started with the governor saying he was going to cooperate and urge others to do the same,” Weinberg said. “Obviously, we’ll have to keep plugging away.” 
 
 Four Republican committee members — Assemblywomen Holly Schepisi of River Vale and Amy Handlin of Monmouth County, Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll of Morris County and Sen. Kevin O’Toole of Cedar Grove — sent a letter to the committee leaders Monday seeking equal access to documents and information. 
 
 Schepisi said Monday that she learned that the committee’s special counsel, Reid Schar, had met with the U.S. Attorney’s Office after reading about the meeting in The Record over the weekend. Wisniewski and Weinberg released a statement from Schar about the Friday meeting to the media on Saturday. 
 
 Schepisi said all of the members of the committee — and not just the leaders — should be receiving regular updates for the sake of “transparency, openness, fairness and ensuring that our committee is not abusing power as it’s investigating abuse of power.” 
 
 Weinberg said she thought Schar’s statement went to all members of the committee and that the Republicans would get equal access to the documents once they come in. 
 
 The lane closures have shaken up governor’s inner circle. Christie fired Kelly and cut ties with Stepien after he called the Fort Lee mayor an “idiot” in an email. Wildstein and Bill Baroni, who Christie named deputy executive director of the Port Authority, have both resigned. Wildstein and Baroni were also subpoenaed. 
 
 In a letter Friday, Wildstein’s attorney said “evidence exists” that Christie knew about the closures when they happened. Christie denied the allegation Monday after his staff sent an email attacking Wildstein’s credibility Saturday. 
 
 The committee is also seeking documents from Port Authority Chairman David Samson and Christie’s incoming chief of staff, Regina Egea, who oversaw independent agencies including the Port Authority. 
 
 When asked if Samson sought an extension, a spokeswoman for his attorneys referred questions to the legislative committee. Genovese Renna’s attorney, Henry Klingeman said she was granted an extension and plans to comply with the subpoenas. 
 
 Email: hayes@northjersey.com or boburg@northjersey.com
– With dozens of people still missing in Washington state's devastating mudslide, Gov. Jay Inslee tells CBS today that "we're hoping for a miracle, and we're working for a miracle. We're doing everything humanly possible if that opportunity exists." Rescuers are "performing Herculean tasks right now. They're working beyond the point of exhaustion, and we intend to exhaust every possible avenue to look for that miracle. But we do know that these are going to be dark days ahead." Asked if his state missed warning signs, Inslee acknowledged "geologic instability" and said "we are going to get to the bottom" of that question. Elsewhere on your Sunday dial, as per Politico: Dianne Feinstein on the Malaysia jet: "So far, there's been" no indication that terrorism was involved. "There's speculation, but there's nothing." Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak on Crimea: "Crimea is a part of Russian Federation. We have said so many times that we have no intent, no interest in crossing the border. We have our forces conducting exercises in the territory of Russian Federation." NJ state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg on Chris Christie: "If Governor Christie comes before our committee under oath and brings all these documents with him, I’d be more than satisfied."