Chris Christie Favors DOJ in Legal Battle Over Trump’s Special Master: ‘A Previous Executive Can’t Assert Executive Privilege’

Chris Christie defended the FBI’s raid for the classified documents Donald Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago. On top of that, he also said the Department of Justice will probably succeed in appealing the ordered special master review of the seized material.

The former New Jersey Republican governor joined This Week on Sunday — where Terry Moran brought up the DOJ’s plan to appeal the special master ruling U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon handed down in the Mar-a-Lago case. Moran asked Christie for his thoughts about the DOJ’s likelihood to succeed after former Attorney General Bill Barr called Cannon’s ruling “deeply flawed.”

“I think the Justice Department’s chances are pretty good,” Christie said before dissecting Trump’s claims to the documents under executive privilege.

There’s only one executive who can assert the privilege, and that’s the one who is the current executive, Joe Biden. A previous executive can’t assert executive privilege. They’re not the executive any longer. Biden will not assert executive privilege over these documents. And I think the idea that some of these documents are somehow attorney-client privilege is going to be a bit of a reach…So I think, for one, I think the DOJ probably has a pretty good chance on appeal

After raising his skepticism for Trump’s oft-claimed defenses, Christie proceeded to justify the Mar-a-Lago search based on the nature of the documents and the timeline of the government’s repeated requests for their return. By Christie’s view, the government had “no choice” but to commence the search after months of stonewalling and deceit by Trump and his team.

“This has been 16 months that the Department of Justice has been saying ‘please,’ asking nicely, negotiating with his attorneys, taking up partial production, seeing a non-response to a subpoena,” Christie said. “They had no choice, in my view, but to go in and take them because of the nature of the documents.”

Watch above via ABC.