Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., said Sunday the person who told CNN special counsel Robert Mueller’s grand jury will issue its first charges early this week may have committed a crime in sharing that information.
“We don’t know who leaked it to CNN. It would be a crime if prosecutors or agents leaked it. If defense lawyers leaked it, it might be less,” Christie told ABC’s “This Week.” “It’s supposed to be kept secret. … There are very strict criminal laws about disclosing grand jury information. Depending upon who disclosed this to CNN, it could be a crime.”
The former federal prosecutor and friend to President Trump said it would hurt Mueller’s special counsel team if one of them shared the private information because it would damage the public’s belief this is a “secret and fair” process.
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., approved Mueller’s charges on Friday, though the identity of the individual who is expected to be indicted on Monday remains unknown.
“If you’re the person, you know. I mean, you have already been told you’re a target. Your lawyers, if you’ve been asked to go into a grand jury, they’ve had to advise you of your status as to whether you’re a target. If you’re told you’re a target, believe me, you’re not sleeping anyway,” Christie added.
Christie said he does not expect the coming announcement to be about a smaller person involved in the probe of Russia’s relationship with Trump’s campaign team.
“When you’re going after the smaller fish to get the bigger fish, you usually don’t charge them. That stuff is working behind the scenes because what you want to do is keep that smaller fish having turned secret because it helps them to be able the to gather more information. Sometimes they can wear a wire for you. Sometimes they can gather information for you, that if they’re quiet, you’re going get it,” Christie said.
“If everyone knows they’ve been charged, they’re going to be treated like they’re radioactive. No one’s going to go near them. No one’s going to talk to them. So I think that what it appears is going on here is he’s approaching this as a normal case with discrete type of charges that may wind up intersecting. May not. Not keeping it all together for a big report like Ken Starr did,” he added.
The former 2016 GOP presidential candidate said he does not expect Trump to pardon any of his former employees, should they be named in the coming or future indictments.
“I have never seen the president talk about that,” said Christie. “If anybody is sitting around thinking ‘I don’t have to worry about anything because the president will pardon me,’ they should talk to Scooter Libby. They should talk to others who thought they were going to be pardoned — all the people involved in Watergate and the pardons they thought they might be getting from President Nixon. They’re still waiting.”
Mueller has been investigating the issue since May. The team has already subpoenaed information from former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and recently said it is looking into Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman, John Podesta.
