Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie believes that had he deleted emails while at the center of the Bridgegate scandal, he would have been scrutinized more severely than Hillary Clinton.
The two-term governor, who has frequently gone after fellow GOP hopefuls Donald Trump and Rand Paul, slammed his leading Democratic opponent on both CNN and Fox News Monday morning.
“Can you imagine, if after the bridge investigation began, I came out and said, ‘Oh, I’ve done all my business as governor on a private email server? And, I’ve deleted now 30,000 of those emails. But trust me, none of it had to do with the bridge,'” Christie told CNN host Chris Cuomo.
“Give me a break,” the New Jersey governor said.
The Washington Times reported Sunday that State Department officials had flagged dozens of emails containing classified information during their review of Clinton’s correspondence on the private server she kept while serving as secretary of state.
“Looking back, it would’ve been better if I’d simply used a second email account and carried a second phone, but at the time, this didn’t seem like an issue,” the Democratic presidential frontrunner said in March.
However, during a separate appearance on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Christie said Clinton is “capable of anything and will say anything.”
“She’s the one who set up the private email server in the first place and had everybody use that private email server and worse, she’s the one who wiped that private email server clean,” he said, adding that Republicans’ criticism of Clinton’s email activity is “not about politics.”
According to Christie, Clinton’s recent claim that her dwindling poll numbers are the result of a “constant barrage of attacks” from the GOP reflects a “typical approach” taken by the Clintons.
“When they’re in trouble they blame everybody else,” he said.
During a campaign appearance in Iowa on Saturday, the former secretary of state tried to discuss the FBI’s investigation into her private email server in a nonchalant fashion, going so far as to joke about her recent decision to join the social networking app, Snapchat.
“I love it,” she reportedly said. “Those messages disappear all by themselves.”
Christie, who said he came to understand the importance of using a government-provided email server while serving as a U.S. attorney for the Department of Justice, was quick to react to Clinton’s attempt to introduce humor to the situation.
“Her arrogance is breathtaking. Breathtaking,” he said on Fox News.
