Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Sunday slammed former President Trump for touting his own indictment, calling it “absurd.”
During a Faith and Freedom Coalition event Saturday, Trump described the two separate indictments he faces as a “great badge of courage” and said, “I’m being indicted for you, and I believe the you is more than 200 million people that love our country.”
In an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” Christie criticized Trump’s remarks and told host Jonathan Karl, “When I listened to Donald Trump’s speech last night — I mean, he had the audacity to say that he got indicted for us.”
“Now, I don’t know how it benefited the American people for him to take highly sensitive intelligence and secret documents out of the White House, to stonewall the government on returning them for over a year and a half, to subject himself to a raid by the FBI even though they asked him voluntarily to return this stuff, and to then be subject to an indictment, which is obviously going to be one of great trouble for the country because no one wants to see this happen,” Christie said.
“Donald Trump says that’s for us. I mean, it’s absurd,” Christie continued. “The same way he has absurdly claimed in the last week that he still won the 2020 election, and he said that’s how he’s going to persuade suburban female voters to vote for him in 2024 that didn’t vote for him in ’20.”
Trump was indicted on 37 federal criminal counts related to his handling of classified documents. He is accused of obstruction of justice and willfully retaining national security information. He also faces an indictment in New York that involves a hush many payment made to a porn actress during the 2016 presidential election.
Christie launched his 2024 presidential bid earlier this year aiming to be Trump’s chief antagonist. Among the crowded Republican field, he has been the candidate most vocal and direct with criticisms of the former president. Christie was a former Trump ally but has more recently been an adversary of the former president.