Christie defends Wray amid GOP grilling, calls House hearing ‘theater’ 

GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie defended FBI Director Christopher Wray as Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

“What you saw today, I think was an animated and combative FBI director who’s defending the men and women who work for him every day and do a great job and protect us from domestic terrorism, from international terrorism and from these drug cartels and are helping state local law enforcement every day with their things,” Christie told Fox News’s John Roberts on “America Reports.”

“So yeah, I think Chris Wray has done a very good job,” he said. “And I think, look, a lot of the stuff you see today, John, is theater, that people trying to raise money for campaigns, doesn’t mean there aren’t problems at the FBI — there are. But I believe Chris is a guy who can get it fixed and he’s fixed a lot of them already.”

Over the course of several hours, GOP members on Wednesday grilled Wray with questions about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and alleged bias in the investigative agency.

Republicans on the panel have accused the Department of Justice and FBI of being politicized by the Biden administration.

Christie and Wray have known each other for more than 20 years, from serving in the Justice Department together to Christie hiring Wray as his personal attorney to defend him during the BridgeGate scandal, where the former New Jersey governor and his allies were accused of creating a traffic jam over the George Washington Bridge to create problems for the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J.

Christie was not convicted in the case, but his former allies Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni were. The Supreme Court tossed both of their convictions in 2020.

Christie said Wednesday that he recommended Wray to former President Trump in 2017 to lead the FBI. It was later reported in October 2020 that Trump and his aides considered firing Wray after the 2020 election.

“Look I’ve known Chris for a long time,” Christie said. “We worked together in the Bush Justice Department in the post 9/11 period and he did an extraordinary job and yeah, I did recommend them to President Trump and I’m proud that I did.”

Christie’s comments stand in contrast to other GOP presidential candidates, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence, who have vowed to fire Wray if elected president.