New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Monday said it would “probably” be illegal if Donald Trump Jr. obtained damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government.
Asked whether it would be inappropriate for a campaign to obtain opposition research from a foreign government, Christie told reporters as quoted by NJ.com, “Yeah, I think it would be.”
“I don’t think there’s any evidence that they did,” he said, referring to President Donald Trump’s eldest son. “But I do think it would be. And I think quite frankly, it’s probably against the law, in addition to being inappropriate.”
Trump Jr. last week published emails arranging a meeting he attended with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya after he was promised compromising information on Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s campaign. His brother-in-law Jared Kushner, now a senior White House adviser, and Trump’s then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended the meeting.
Christie said he didn’t know whether Trump Jr. “had any obligation to come forward and say who he was meeting with at that time,” but implied that Kushner should have disclosed the meeting earlier.
“Those who are members of the government have an obligation to give everything, completely true and accurate,” he said. “If you’re in government, you have a different standard you need to adhere to.”
