President Trump openly confirmed he is considering launching an investigation into former ally and New Jersey governor Chris Christie.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late Sunday that Christie had lied about 2013 lane closures on the George Washington Bridge “in order to stay out of prison, at the same time sacrificing people who worked for him.” The president was referring to a decision by Christie’s associates to close access lanes to the bridge, which links New Jersey and Manhattan, in order to punish the Democratic mayor of a New Jersey town.
“Chris refused to take responsibility for these criminal acts,” Trump wrote. “For the sake of JUSTICE, perhaps we should start looking at that very serious situation again? NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!”
The 2013 “Bridgegate” closures created days of traffic jams, and the scandal tarnished Christie’s reputation and helped to destroy his 2016 presidential candidacy. Christie has long denied any knowledge of the plan. He could not immediately be reached for comment.
It was not immediately clear what aspect of Christie’s Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week” had led President Trump to threaten him on social media.
Christie mentioned the president by name after he was asked by the journalist Jonathan Karl whether Vice President JD Vance, who has defended the criminal investigation into Mr. Bolton, is playing a role in it.
Christie responded by mentioning what he called the administration’s disregard for the idea of separation between the president and criminal investigations. He noted that Mr. Trump had recently described himself as the nation’s “chief law enforcement officer.”
“Donald Trump sees himself as the person who gets to decide everything, and he doesn’t care about any separation,” Christie told Karl. “In fact, he absolutely rejects the idea that there should be separation between criminal investigations and the politically elected leader of the United States. This is much different than it’s ever been run before.”
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Then on Monday, he doubled down after being asked if he plans “to investigate Chris Christie.”
“Look, Chris is a slob, everybody knows it. I know Chris better than anybody in the room. I always felt he was guilty. But what he did is he took the George Washington Bridge, which is very serious, he closed down the George Washington Bridge,” answered Trump. “And you had medical people, You had ambulances caught up. You know, this thing was closed down. And obviously he knew about it. But he blamed the young lady that worked for him, and another person, and they got into a lot of trouble. She ultimately was, I don’t know, exonerated, but she got out of it a little bit. But she went through hell. She was a young mother, nice person, I knew her a little bit. And another man went to jail. And Chris got off.”
“And so when I listen to Chris speak his hate, I say, ‘Oh, what about the George Washington Bridge?’ You know? ‘Tell me about the George Washington Bridge.’ He blamed other people, but he knew all about it. So, no, I don’t know. If they want to look at it — not for me. — if they want look at it, they can. You could ask Pam [Bondi]. I think we have other things to do, but I always thought he got away with murder,” he concluded.
Several members of Christie’s administration were ultimately convicted for their role in helping shut down multiple lanes of the George Washington Bridge back in 2013, though those convictions were later thrown out by the Supreme Court.
