WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump threatened to open an investigation targeting Chris Christie over the former New Jersey governor’s decade-old “Bridgegate” scandal after Christie criticized Trump on television earlier in the day.
The threat came just days after the FBI searched the home and office of another Trump critic, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, as part of an open criminal investigation. Trump lashed out at the former friend-turned-foe Christie in an evening Aug. 24 post on Truth Social, remarking that he just watched “Sloppy Chris Christie” on ABC’s This Week.
“Can anyone believe anything that Sloppy Chris says?” Trump wrote. “Do you remember the way he lied about the dangerous and deadly closure of the George Washington Bridge in order to stay out of prison, at the same time sacrificing people who worked for him, including a young mother, who spent years trying to fight off the vicious charges against her.”
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Trump added: “Chris refused to take responsibility for these criminal acts. For the sake of JUSTICE, perhaps we should start looking at that very serious situation again? NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!”
As the Republican governor of New Jersey, Christie’s “Bridgegate” scandal arose in 2013 when top officials of his administration ordered the closure of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in a bizarre scheme to create a traffic jam to get back at a Democratic mayor who had not endorsed Christie’s reelection bid.
Christie was not charged with crimes, but two officials in his administration were, though the Supreme Court later overturned their federal convictions in 2020.
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Christie, a onetime close Trump ally who led Trump’s 2016 presidential transition team, is today one of the president’s most outspoken Republican critics. Christie was the only Republican candidate to regularly go on the attack against Trump in the 2024 Republican primary.
Trump did not specify what Christie said during his ABC appearance that set him off. Christie accused Trump of politicizing the Justice Department as he was interviewed on the show.
“You were told that this was what he was going to do,” Christie said. “And not by me, by Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign. He told you he was going to do this – that he was going to have a Justice Department that acted his personal legal representation, and that is what they’re doing.”
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Christie made a jab at Trump over the FBI’s search of Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home and Washington, D.C. office, which Vice President JD Vance said involved “classified documents.”
“I think it’s kind of funny to hear the president talk the way he does about Bolton and classified information, yet when he had classified information, the same rules didn’t apply,” Christie said, referring to the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in 2022.
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In his interview on “This Week,” Christie also suggested that comments from Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell ‒ in which she said Trump was not guilty of any wrongdoing and praised him as “cordial” and “kind” ‒ should be taken with a grain of salt.
“She might as well have taken out Donald Trump, or President Trump, and said, ‘The man who can pardon me has never done anything wrong. The man who can pardon me has always been wonderful,” Christie said, though later adding he doesn’t believe Trump had any involvement with Epstein over anything “untoward or illegal.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump threatens Chris Christie with new ‘Bridgegate’ probe
