Chris Christie: As A Former Prosecutor It Looks Like Hunter Biden Has Been “Undercharged”

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GUY BENSON, HOST, FOX RADIO: Joining us now is Chris Christie, long time friend of the program. He of course was the governor of New Jersey. He’s author of the book “Republican Rescue” and now he is a presidential candidate for the Republicans, seeking the nomination in 2024.

 

Governor, welcome back to the show.

 

CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (R): Great to be back, Guy. Thanks for having me.

 

BENSON: Of course. I want to start with this Biden family scandal story. You were a federal prosecutor for quite some time. As you look at what the DOJ has reportedly offered Hunter Biden in terms of the set of facts and allegations against him versus the plea deal that he’s been offered, what do you make of that? Let’s start there.

 

CHRISTIE: Well, I’m first incredibly concerned with how long it took to get to a plea that amounts to two misdemeanor tax pleas and a dismissal essentially of a drug (ph) — of gun charge.

 

You know there’s no way that anything like that should have taken five years. When I had run the attorney’s office if a case like that took more than a year or a year and a half, there were people who were going to be getting fired.

 

You know the fact is that they have undercharged in this case, in my view, especially on the gun charge. I would have never permitted that type of compromise for someone who lied on a gun application.

 

But in addition, there’s so many more questions out there that I think that Mr. Weiss needs to answer those questions and he probably needs to answer in front of a congressional committee.

 

And if he says that the case is ongoing than he’s going to need, I think, to give a date and a date certain to the Congress as to when he’s going to finish with his investigation. He can’t drag this on till after the 2024 election because too many questions still need to be answered about all the information that’s come from the whistleblower and had been otherwise put out into the public stream, which are deeply disturbed about the conduct of Hunter Biden and perhaps other members of the Biden family.

 

BENSON: Yeah. And allegedly specific involvement from the president himself and that connection is part of what the whistleblowers are specifically alleging in this case. I just want to go back to something you just mentioned, the time horizon on this.

 

Given your experience, does it make any sense to you that it would take five years to get to two misdemeanor charges and basically making the gun charge vanish? And if it doesn’t make sense to you, what would be a plausible explanation for how and why it took this long?

 

CHRISTIE: It makes zero sense to me. So let’s start there. And so now let’s look at what the possible explanations are. The only plausible explanation is that they were investigating something that was much broader and much bigger than just the tax counts and the gun count.

 

BENSON: Right.

 

CHRISTIE: And that they made — for whatever reason he made a determination not to charge it. I don’t know whether that’s the case or not but the only other — the only other possibility is rank incompetence. And — and I’d rather stay away from that one when the other alternative CG (ph) much more likely, which is they were looking at something much bigger and that they’ve decided to walk away from that given all the information regarding that conduct between Hunter Biden and foreign governments and foreign entities that he has an obligation to explain it to the American people because it involves the family and the president.

 

BENSON: Meanwhile, Merrick Garland, the attorney general on Friday came out and was very dismissive of what the whistleblowers are accusing the DOJ of doing. And he said this didn’t happen, that didn’t happen. We talked about this earlier in the show, making a bunch of assertions sort of scoffing at some of their claims but it does appear that they named whistleblower is a very well respected person in a prestigious area within the IRS, within the agency, was well liked, well known within the agency, is considered to be a serious person and crucially, through his attorneys has so called receipts.

 

For example, an email backing up what he’s saying about what was the U.S. attorney was telling certain people in different scenarios that would directly contradict the denials of the Justice Department, the assertions of the Justice Depart and some of the things that have been said by Merrick Garland himself; now what?

 

Someone isn’t telling the truth, Governor.

 

CHRISTIE: It’s very true. And — and the bottom line is that’s why I think oversight has to get involved in all this. Congressional oversight has to get involved because you have someone who does appear to be a credible whistle blower. You know that doesn’t mean that his obligation — his allegations are credible but they very well could be.

 

And given his reputation and years of service, he is at least owed the opportunity to make his case as any whistleblower should. Now you all member all around the Ukraine impeachment that Colonel Vindman was given great opportunity to testify and lay his case out in the general public and I think that was the right thing to do.

 

And if that’s the right thing to do it certainly would be the same principal that applies to what’s going on here with the Biden’s.

 

BENSON: You know Vindman was like a national hero in the eyes of at least much of the media. He became almost a household name. They were treating him as someone bringing forth the gospel of truth against Donald Trump, I’m not sure these whistleblowers have been covered virtually at all by many of these exact same outlets who seem to have zeal to cover the allegations of certain whistleblowers but not really so much other ones, depending almost entirely, Governor, and curiously on the party identification of the people the whistle is being blown out.

 

All right, am I too cynical or is that just about right?

 

CHRISTIE: No, I think it’s just about right and I think that’s why it’s a blessing that we have a majority in the House of Representatives and an aggressive oversight committee that could perform this function. And it’s an appropriate Constitution function for them to perform given this position of the case right now, which seems to me to be concluded.

 

And if it’s not concluded, then Mr. Weiss has to be very specific with Congress about when it will be concluded and when he will bring it to a conclusion. Let me tell you this, Guy, for a man who’s been a U.S. attorney. When you’re the U.S. attorney you can force a matter to brought to a conclusion. You set that line, you push your people, you push the investigative agencies and all of this, especially when cases become public need to be brought to a conclusion as quickly as possible.

 

It is the least Mr. Weiss owes to the American people also given all the leaks that have come out of either his office or his investigative agencies regarding this matter.

 

BENSON: Yes. I would Weiss and also I’ll throw Garland in as well. Governor, let’s talk about a different matter, which is the indictment against former president Donald Trump. You have been very outspoken on it. You made a lot of the points, frankly, that we’ve made here as well.

 

I saw over the weekend a few different things. You were on national television talking about Trump, giving a speech where he basically tried to frame his indictment as him carrying a burden for the American people. Basically, I’m paraphrasing, saying you know I’m — I’m doing this for you. This is basically an indictment of you. What’s your reaction to that?

 

CHRISTIE: It’s asinine. OK. And it’s absolutely got another indication of how self consumed the president is and he puts himself before the American people. Now he’s saying that when he took confidential, top secret documents out of the White House, which was not permitted, when the Justice Department and the National Archives asked him quietly, privately and politely for nearly 18 months to return them and he returned to do so and if the — if the indictment is to be believed, not only refused to do so but obstructed his own lawyers ability to comply with a Grand Jury subpoena.

 

And then forcing the FBI to raid him when he said he had no further classified documents and they found over 100 classified documents and then was charged for it but that charge was for us. That must be the same way that he’s telling people who are donating 25, 50, $100 to him on his campaign website, he hasn’t told them that he’s taking 10 percent of every dollar they give and diverting it to pay his own legal fees.

 

A billionaire is grifting off of the American people who are trying to support his campaign and — but now know that he’s paying his legal fees for a billionaire. Why can’t he pay his own legal fees? This guy is all about himself. And to say that he’s getting indicted for us off of that set of facts is asinine.

 

BENSON: Another thing that happened over the weekend, you and many other presidential aspirants spoke at a conservative gathering, social conservatives, and you were talking about some of your (inaudible) and some of the battles that you fought in New Jersey and your vision on those issues.

 

You also talked about character and you laid into Donald Trump, unsurprisingly I mean. That’s been since day one of this campaign. We just heard some of that right there. You were met in the room with some boos. I know that you were probably expecting something of a negative response from some of the Trump supporters in the House. Or even maybe not Trump supporters but people who don’t feel like you should be going after him that way. Why did you decide to do that anyway and what was your approach — you’ve been booed before by teachers unions at a town hall meeting, you’re not scared of that.

 

But you’re trying to win people’s votes over. You never want to be necessarily booed by those people that you’re courting. Just give us your thought process on what you said and why you said it.

 

CHRISTIE: God, because the truth matters. And the fact of the matter is that to say that Donald Trump has placed himself before the country, to say he’s been unwilling to take responsibility for his own mistake for the failings of himself personally and his administration but that he’s more than willing to take credit for everything good that happens on his watch.

 

And if that is a lack of character, it’s just the truth. And so I’m not going to change my message, Guy, at all depending on what group I’m in front of. If I’ve got something that I need to say I’m going to say it. And there will be some people who will like it and some people who won’t. But people need to hear the truth.

 

We’re in a society right now were people tend to only hear the truth they want to hear based upon the network they watch or the newspaper they read or the people they interact with at dinner parties or cocktail parties. I think we need to hear all the truth. And even the stuff that makes us uncomfortable. And I think we need a president once again who will tell us not only the things that we want to hear but will tell us the things that we need to hear.

 

And so I expected I’d be booed by some people but the thing that under reported was I got cheered by a number of people in that audience. And if you listen to the video you can hear the clapping in the background as well. And when I left the event I got approached by a group of 20 young conservative men chanting my name and asking for a group picture.

 

And they thanked me, thanks for telling the truth. It’s going to take a while, Guy, because the truth hasn’t been told by our leaders whether it’s Joe Biden or Donald Trump to the American people for a long time.

 

But I’m going to do it and I think it’s going to make a difference.

 

BENSON: Governor, I know you’ve got to run. Very quickly, just strategy wise you spent a ton of time in New Hampshire last time you ran for president in 2016. It seems like the early state best suited to sort of your temperament and your style of politics and your ideology. Is that kind of the plan again, New Hampshire 2.0?

 

CHRISTIE: I — to be honest, I’m in New Hampshire, I’m in South Carolina also and in Nevada. I think they’re all very, very important states in those first four and that’s where I intend to spend a majority of my time.

 

And you know now, Guy, all we’re doing is going out there and, you know, trying to do everything we can to make sure that we get that message out, that we get people to help us by donating, so go on — get on the debate stage in August. Those are the things we’re focused on because I think once we get on that stage is when the campaign really begins in earnest.

 

And we’re ready to tell exactly the same truth we’ve been telling in the first nearly weeks (ph) of this campaign.

 

BENSON: Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican running for president in this current cycle. My guest on the Guy Benson Show. Governor, we’ll talk again soon. Thanks so much.

 

CHRISTIE: Guy, thanks for having me and I encourage people to go to chrischristie.com to learn more.