Chris Christie says Jared Kushner masterminded a 'hit job' against him

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is ready to throw numerous current and former Trump administration officials under the bus.

Christie, who served as the head of President Trump's 2016 transition team before being replaced by then Vice President-elect Mike Pence, writes about his experiences with the president in his new book Let Me Finish, excerpts of which were reported on by The Guardian. In it, he claims that he was ousted from the Trump transition team after senior adviser Jared Kushner executed a political "hit job" against him. This, Christie concludes, was revenge for his prosecution of Kushner's father, Charles Kushner, when Christie was a federal attorney; Christie writes that Kushner was "still apparently seething over events that had occurred a decade ago."

Christie says Stephen Bannon, then the campaign's chief executive officer, was the one to fire him, but Christie coaxed out of him that Kushner was responsible for what he describes as a "faceless execution." It sounds like it wasn't difficult for Christie to figure out who was behind it, though, since he says Kushner had trash talked him to Trump in a meeting as far back as April 2016 — while Christie was still in the room, no less. Christie contends that the transition ended up being a "thrown-together" mess after he left and that the wrong people were repeatedly selected for key jobs.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

He also argues that Trump has been "ill served by poor advice" from numerous officials including Kushner, who apparently told Trump that firing former FBI Director James Comey would not be the huge deal that it was. Christie also goes after former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as a "Russian lackey and future federal felon" who was "a train wreck from beginning to end … a slow-motion car crash." Christie additionally calls former Attorney General Jeff Sessions "not-ready-for-prime-time," criticizing him for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Read more at The Guardian.