President Trump on Monday doubled down on his threat to launch a federal criminal investigation into Chris Christie over the former New Jersey governor’s alleged role in the 2013 “Bridgegate” scandal.
The president was asked in the Oval Office about any potential plans to probe the anti-Trump Republican hours after he accused “sloppy Chris Christie” of having “lied about the dangerous and deadly closure of the George Washington Bridge in order to stay out of prison,” in a scathing Truth Social post.
“Look, Chris is a slob, everybody knows it,” Trump told reporters. “I know Chris better than anybody in the room. I always felt he was guilty.”
The president described the infamous September 2013 incident, which saw several lane closures on the bridge connecting Fort Lee, NJ, to Manhattan in an act of political retribution – as “very serious.”
“You had medical people, you had ambulances caught up” in the massive traffic jams, Trump said.
“Obviously, he knew about it,” the president said of Christie, “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.”
The Supreme Court tossed the convictions of two aides tied to the scandal in 2020, ruling that the scheme, despite involving deception and corruption, didn’t violate federal law.
“Chris got off,” Trump fumed. “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.”
The president suggested he was open to the Justice Department investigating the 12-year-old political scandal, but said he would leave it up to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“If they want to look at it — not for me — if they want to look at it, they can,” Trump told reporters. ”You could ask Pam [Bondi].”
“I think we have other things to do, but I always thought he got away with murder.”
Christie, who backed Trump in the 2016 presidential race, has since called his endorsement a mistake and has been an outspoken critic of the president.
Trump’s focus on Christie comes after the former governor was critical of the commander in chief in a Sunday interview with ABC’s “This Week.”
Christie had weighed in on the federal investigation against former National Security Advisor John Bolton, whose Maryland home and DC office were raided by federal agents earlier Friday morning.
Similar to Christie, Bolton became a prominent anti-Trump voice after serving in his first administration.
