Former Republican governor of New Jersey and current presidential candidate, Chris Christie, speaks out on the indictment against his ex-ally, former President Donald J. Trump. Christie referred to the facts outlined in the indictment as “devastating” and predicted that the small group of Republicans now critical of Trump will grow.
Appearing on CNN Friday evening, Christie rebutted Trump and other Republicans’ claims that the indictment was selective, partisan prosecution, and a tool that would divide the country.
Christie said that the indictment would undoubtedly divide the nation, but Trump’s own poor conduct had brought it upon himself as the accusations were completely self-inflicted.
Although Christie still believes Hillary Clinton should have faced charges for mishandling classified documents on her private email server, he expressed that each case must be assessed on its own merits, and in this case, the facts are damning.
According to Christie, the prosecution of Trump is about “holding people in positions of responsibility accountable”. He emphasized this message at the beginning of the broadcast by outlining his own record as a federal prosecutor. In this campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, Christie has made his willingness to draw negative attention to Trump central to his message. Only he and one other candidate, Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, spoke in favor of the government’s case against Trump.
Other candidates, attempting to balance their need to gain support from Trump’s supporters against the necessity to dislodge the former president as the front-runner, have mostly taken the side of the Republican base, which backs Trump.
Rather than claiming that the Justice Department is holding Trump to an unfair standard, Christie stated that a man of Trump’s stature and ambitions should be held to a higher standard.
In Christie’s own words, “The conduct is bad […] It’s particularly awful for someone who has been president and who aspires to be president again.”
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