Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination against Donald Trump twice, was one of the keynote speakers at the Principles First Summit in Washington, DC this weekend, where conservative Anti-Trumpers including former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, condemned the new Trump administration and its new “rule of law.”
Christie, a former prosecutor and US Attorney for New Jersey, was asked to talk about Trump’s blanket pardoning of the convicted rioters who attacked the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, after Trump said there would be a systemic review to see if some of the people were overcharged.
Christie replied: “Knowing him, the January 6 pardons happened the way they did because of Biden’s pardons of his family. I think that Trump saw that and went, [expletive]. All rules are off.”
Note: After pardoning his son Hunter Biden in December (after pledging that he wouldn’t), President Biden also issued pardons for his brother James and his wife, Sara; his sister, Valerie, and her husband, John Owens; and his brother Francis, on the morning of Trump’s second inauguration.
When Christie added, “If we’re gonna be credible about our criticism of Trump we have to also be willing to criticize other outrageous actions by other political leaders in this country,” he received a round of applause.
.@GovChristie: “If we’re gonna be credible about our criticism of Trump, we have to also be willing to criticize other outrageous actions by other political leaders in this country.” pic.twitter.com/y2bstYTRIx
— Principles First (@Principles_1st) February 22, 2025
Christie said: “I am convinced based on what I had heard from friends of mine who were joining the new administration that that was the process, that there was going to be a systematic review and that when Trump got out of the Capitol on inauguration day, having been told at the Capitol that Biden had pardoned his entire family, that he went, ‘Screw it. That’s it. There are no rules anymore. I’m doing it.’”
Note: As US Attorney in 2005, Christie prosecuted New Jersey businessman Charles Kushner — the father of Trump’s future son-in-law Jared Kushner — who pleaded guilty to 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison. President Trump pardoned Charles Kushner in 2020, and in 2024 named Charles Kushner the U.S. Ambassador to France.
Christie has said that then-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told him that it was Jared Kushner who fired Christie as Trump’s transition chairman in November 2016.
As seen in the PBS interview below, Christie was asked, “Would you separate your experience — if your father had been put in jail — from the prosecutor who put him in jail?” Christie replied: “If my father was guilty, I would.”
Christie reminded viewers that Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted.”
In Christie’s words: Kushner “paid a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law and videotape it, and then sent the videotape to his sister in an attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury.” The former prosecutor added: “I had a moral and ethical obligation to bring that prosecution.”