Chris Christie gets bit part in Trump impeachment trial

Former Gov. Chris Christie, a long-time friend and adviser to Donald Trump, had a bit part in the former president’s unprecedented second impeachment trial on Thursday.

One of the impeachment managers, Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., played clips of several Republicans telling Trump to call off the hordes who had stormed the Capitol.

“Current and former officials immediately recognized that the president had incited the crowd, that he alone was capable of stopping the violence, that he did this and he had to call it off because he was the only one who could,” Neguse said.

To buttress his point, Neguse then played videos of Christie and several other Republicans, including Reps. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, imploring Trump to act.

“It’s pretty simple,” Christie said in a video of his comments on ABC News. “The president caused this protest to occur. He’s the only one who can make this stop. The president has to come out and tell his supporters to leave the Capitol grounds and to allow the Congress to do their business peacefully. Anything short of that is an abrogation of his responsibility.”

Also on the program, Christie said he had been trying to reach Trump for 25 minutes without success. Later that day, he told ABC that he was “just absolutely sickened by what I saw.”

He said the following weekend on ABC that he believed that Trump committed an impeachable offense. “If inciting to insurrection isn’t, then I don’t really know what is,” Christie said

Neguse said Trump could have ended the violence had he chosen to, before five people were killed.

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“When President Trump wants to stop something, he does so simply, easily, quickly, but aside from four tweets and a short clip during the over five-hour-long attack, he did nothing,” Neguse said. “He reacted exactly the way someone would react if they were delighted and exactly unlike how a person would react if they were angry at how their followers were acting.”

Trump did tell his supporters to “go home with love and in peace” and “remember this way forever,” in the same tweet after he first said, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long.”

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.

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