In a new tell-all book, former New Jersey Governor — and former head of the Trump transition team — Chris Christie details the inner workings of the early Trump administration, and just how much leverage Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law, had over who stayed and who left.
The book, titled Let Me Finish, is an account of the style of politics that made him uniquely suited for Team Trump, even remaining in strong consideration to be the bottom half of the presidential ticket well before Mike Pence was hand-picked by Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort. But what Christie didn’t count on was a long-held grudge over his prosecution of Kushner’s father for tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign donations during his time as a US Attorney.
Having Christie in close proximity, it seems, led Jared to give Trump himself any number of ill-informed pieces of advice, not least of which were to fire Mike Flynn and former FBI Director James Comey. After that took place, Trump was so adamant that he had made the decision on his own that he even accidentally admitted live on television to NBC’s Lester Holt that the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the election led him to the firing.
According to Christie, Kushner told the President that firing [former national security adviser] Michael Flynn would shut down all talk of links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin — a position that turned out to be spectacularly, hilariously wrong. Kushner apparently also advised Trump specifically that firing Comey would not lead to an “enormous shit-storm,” another assertion that in the end proved to be fatally mistaken.
Regarding his own dismissal from the Trump cadre, Christie was essentially told by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon that Kushner was the cause in that case as well:
The kid’s been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here.”
Christie is inexplicably kind to Kushner in the book regarding his attendance at the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting that seems to confirm the quid-pro-quo the Trump campaign has been accused of with the Kremlin. Kushner is said to have been interviewed by Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigators regarding that meeting.
The new book is certain to set Trump’s Twitter account ablaze.
Featured image via screen capture
