Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie slammed Donald Trump as a “con artist” and accused the former president of “grifting” his donors amid his ongoing legal battles.
Christie made the comment in a CNN interview after the Washington Post reported that more than half the money raised for Trump’s 2024 re-election bid actually went towards paying his legal bills.
“You really need this billionaire….you really need to have people who are donating $10, $20, $50 to your campaign pay for your high-priced lawyers for indictments that you’ve all put on yourself by paying off a porn star, by holding back classified documents despite the fact that they’ve been asked for voluntarily for 18 months?” Christie said. “I mean, this is ridiculous. And he is using these people in a way that I don’t think that they completely know about.”
“People are giving to him and because they think it’s going to help him get reelected president when all he’s doing is grifting off these people,” Christie added. “He is a con artist, who is conning them out of their money, pretending he wants to be their president. Well, what he wants is a free ride for the legal defense he’s getting for the criminal charges he personally faces.”
Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury earlier this year in connection with hush money payments he made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. The former president was also indicted by a federal grand jury for alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office and obstruction of justice.
Trump also faces possible charges in Georgia over his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state. The former president also revealed earlier this week that he received a letter notifying him that he is a target in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation.
Trump has denounced all these investigations and indictments as a politically motivated attack on him by the Biden Justice Department.
Christie pushed back in a separate interview with CNN last week, calling Trump “a liar and a coward.”
“He’s not getting indicted for anyone other than because of his own conduct,” he said.
Christie has been the only candidate in the GOP primary forcefully pushing back on Trump. But, he has not gained any traction in the field from the Trump-friendly Republican primary electorate.
