Chris Christie Says He Is Not an ‘Expert’ on Mueller Report, Proceeds to Prove It

Chris Christie Says He Is Not an ‘Expert’ on Mueller Report, Proceeds to Prove It

Donald Trump claims to never watch MSNBC, but the ever-loyal Chris Christie wasn’t taking any chances on Wednesday. Or else he does not understand the Mueller report he claims to have read.

Christie told Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC that he would not have signed onto a letter from (now 700) former federal prosecutors stating that President Trump obstructed justice during the Russia investigation and would be charged if he was not in office.

“I wouldn’t sign onto it because no one obstructed Bob Mueller,” Christie told an incredulous Ruhle. “You know who said no one obstructed Bob Mueller? Bob Mueller, who said that anything he ever asked for, he was permitted to do.”

He continued, “He was never denied a subpoena of anyone that he asked for. He was never denied a search warrant of anybody that he asked for…if Bob Mueller himself has said that there was nothing that came out of the executive branch that stopped me from doing what I wanted to do.”

Christie was engaging in some serious sleight of hand. Every request Mueller made of the Department of Justice might have been approved. But the Mueller report never claimed to investigate the DOJ. It was investigating efforts by the president, some of which was resisted by officials in the Justice Department, to obstruct the investigation. That is what is laid out clearly in the report, and also in the letter signed by the federal prosecutors.

Christie is a former federal prosecutor and U.S. Attorney, so presumably he understands that one need not be successful in committing obstruction of justice to be charged with it. Usually the attempt at obstruction, if a prosecutor feels the subject had corrupt intent, is enough to at least seriously consider an indictment.

Christie also surely knows that Mueller purposely did not make a recommendation on whether or not to charge President Trump because he felt that should be left up to either the Attorney General or Congress. And if he has read the report, he surely knows that its writers explicitly state that the report “does not exonerate” Donald Trump.

With all due respect to Ruhle, if MSNBC is going to give Christie a platform to spread this kind of disingenuousness on national TV, he should be interviewed by someone who can push back on him.

Watch the clip up top, via MSNBC.

Gary Legum

Gary Legum has written about politics and culture for Independent Journal Review, Salon, The Daily Beast, Wonkette, AlterNet and McSweeney's, among others. He currently lives in his native state of Virginia.

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