Christie says Trump will be convicted in slew of legal battles: ‘It’s over’
Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie predicted Tuesday morning that former President Trump will be convicted in one of his legal cases, claiming “it’s over” for Trump.
His suggestion comes a week after former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was granted an immunity deal in the case.
“This is a guy who was velcro to Trump’s hip for the entire 2020 campaign and all the post-campaign nonsense,” Christie said of Meadows in an MSNBC interview. “And so this is deadly, it’s done. He’s going to be convicted. … It’s over.”
“I want Republican voters to understand this — what’s going to be happening in March? He’s going to be sitting in a courtroom in Washington, D.C., with Mark Meadows 20 feet away from him, saying, ‘He committed crimes in front of me on my watch,'” the former New Jersey governor added during his appearance on “Morning Joe.”
Trump was charged by federal prosecutors in August over his alleged attempts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election. While Meadows was not charged in Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s case, he was charged alongside Trump and 17 others in Georgia over an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state.
Meadows agreed to an immunity deal with Smith in order to testify before a grand jury in the election interference case in Washington, D.C., ABC News first reported last week. The outlet said he spoke before the grand jury in the case on at least three separate occasions.
Christie — who previously served as a federal prosector — said he does not think Trump can delay his legal battles, despite his presidential campaign.
“I don’t have the impression that this district court judge in Washington is amenable to delay,” Christie said, adding that he thinks Smith purposely only indicted Trump in the Jan. 6 case.
“She has not given much at this point into the defense claims for delay, and I think that’s why Jack Smith indicted this case with just Trump, right? Because you don’t have multiple defendants. … This is it,” he said, speaking of Judge Tanya Chutkan.
“He has six unindicted co-conspirators, not because he doesn’t think they committed crimes, but because he learned from the documents case,” Christie said, in reference to Trump’s separate federal charges in Florida over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House.
Last week, Christie said Trump should be “desperately worried” following Meadows’s immunity deal, which he appears to oppose.
“You don’t give Mark Meadows immunity,” the former governor said, “unless the evidence he has is unimpeachable.”
Christie has been one of Trump’s most outspoken critics on the campaign trail. He has also encouraged the other GOP hopefuls to follow suit.
Despite Trump’s mounting legal troubles — including a fourth criminal case in New York over alleged hush money payments — he remains the clear front-runner in the Republican presidential primary by a wide margin.
Recent polling from Morning Consult shows the former president with 61 percent of the Republican primary vote, compared to Christie, who has garnered about 3 percent support.