'Corleones with no experience': Christie dunks Trumpworld’s alleged obstruction of justice

30 July 2023

Former New Jersey governor and 2024 presidential candidate Chris Christie predicted on Sunday's edition of State of the Union that ex-President Donald Trump's final White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows will be the next individual to provide incriminating testimony against Trump to United States Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith in his ongoing probe of Trump's attempts to steal the 2020 election and remain in power.

"I'd like to know, when you look at this new evidence, I mean, is there a clear-cut case of obstruction of justice here?" CNN anchor Kasie Hunt asked, alluding to the three new charges that Smith added to his thirty-seven-count indictment of Trump's alleged illegal retention of top-secret documents at his Palm Beach, Florida Mar-a-Lago golf club.

"It appears that way, Kasie. You know, you look at it, it's pretty brazen," Christie replied. "These guys were, were acting like the Corleones with no experience. I mean, the day after a grand jury subpoena served, which includes the surveillance tapes, they go down to Mar-a-Lago — and Walt Nauda appears to be the Fredo of this family — they send him to go down there and they send him to go and delete it. This is bad stuff and, you know, you can't say there was no underlying potential crime here. This was the withholding of confidential classified information from the government after eighteen months of asking Donald Trump to return it voluntarily. Not only did he not return it, he lied about having it. This is not the kind of thing we could do."

Christie continued, "I want you to think Kasie for a second about the potential effect on our troops and our intelligence officers by having this stuff just laying around and him willy-nilly showing it to whoever he feels like to be a show off on the back deck at Mar-a-Lago. You know, this is not what a former president should be doing, and it's certainly not something that someone who wants to be president should be doing."

Hunt followed up, "And does it go to criminal intent? I mean, this seems to suggest that Trump was aware — I mean, his defense has been, 'Well, I can declassify whatever I want' — this seems to fly in the face of that defense."

Christie noted that despite Trump's claim that he telepathically declassified intelligence reports after Mar-a-Lago was scoured by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last August, the erstwhile commander-in-chief has no excuse for his actions.

"Well, first of all, the declassify, 'I can declassify whatever I want' defense is not a defense. You can declassify whatever you want when you're president. You can't do it by thinking about it. You can't do it about mind-melding with the documents, there's a process you have to go through to declassify and he knows that. So there are no defenses in that regard here," Christie explained.

Christie also suggested that Smith's growing witness list should greatly worry Trump.

"So look, he's presumed innocent, but the bottom line is the government has made a very, very compelling case, and remember something. Usually, the government only includes, at the most, about half of the evidence they have. And what's clear on the latest obstruction charges are they have a cooperating witness," Christie said. "You know, 'Trump Employee Number Four' looks like a very, very important cooperating witness. So we now have people inside the Trump Organization employed by Donald Trump who are testifying against him. But I think the next one you're gonna see is former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the January 6th case. And I wonder what Donald Trump will have to say about that."

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