Christie: Facts Laid Out in Indictment ‘Damning in Terms of Donald Trump’s Conduct’

Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) said Friday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that the facts laid out in the unsealed indictment against former President Donald Trump were “damning.”

Christie said, “For folks who may not remember this, I did this for seven years as the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, the fifth largest U.S. attorney’s office in the country. I brought 130 political corruption prosecutions against Republicans and Democrats, and didn’t lose one. So, I know how this stuff works. And the fact is that these facts are devastating. You have a president who, according to the indictment, directed the packing of those boxes in terms of what to take, directed where they should go to Mar-a-Lago, directed where they went while they were inside Mar-a-Lago, directed them to move to Bedminster during the summer, where he would spend his summers in New Jersey. Then when requests came starting in May of 2021, informal requests, he continued to stonewall them and not return the documents. Then when a subpoena came asked his lawyers whether or not we would have to respond to it? Do we have to play ball? Then tried to get them to lie on his behalf. When he knew they wouldn’t, and his own lawyer had to make recordings to protect himself, when they wouldn’t, he directed his folks to hide boxes from his own lawyer in order not to turn these documents over to the government.”

He continued, “It’s a very, very evidence-filled indictment. What you can tell as a trained person reading this is they have tape recordings, they have electronic text messages and emails, and they have the testimony of dozens of people who were right around Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago and in Bedminster over time. Those are all the elements of the things you need to bring a case like this.”

Christie added, “The facts that are laid out here are damning in terms of Donald Trump’s conduct. And that’s what, I think, we as a party should be looking at. Do we really believe that someone who engaged in this type of conduct is going to be the best person to put up against Joe Biden? that’s the question we should be asking.”

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