Chris Christie on Friday didn’t mention Rand Paul by name during a speech to the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington. But there was no mistaking who he was talking about.
Christie, a former federal prosecutor who served as a U.S. attorney immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is a strong proponent of domestic spying powers to root out terrorists and their plots on the homeland before they can be executed.
Christie, a likely Republican presidential candidate has been critical of the Kentucky senator in the past. The governor takes issue with Paul’s opposition to the Patriot Act and, particularly the National Security Agency’s program to collect Americans bulk, unidentified telephone data. The program has since been significantly altered by Congress, in part because of the dogged opposition of Paul, a Republican who declared for president in April.
And, for that, Christie unloaded, accusing the senator of using his elected position and opposition to domestic spying powers as a means to finance his White House bid.
“These same people who give long speeches up on Capitol Hill, if god forbid there is another attack on this country, will be the first ones to haul the CIA director and the FBI director up to Capitol Hill, put them under oath and excoriate them for not connecting the dots and preventing the attack without for a moment understanding the hypocrisy that underlies that question because they were the ones who made the job harder for people to do,” Christie said. “I stand for keeping America safe and making America strong and not giving political speeches on the floor of the Senate to raise money for a presidential campaign.”
Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican, has been a consistent opponent of the Patriot Act and domestic data collection by the NSA. But he did use an hours-long filibuster-style speech delivered on the floor of the Senate during the debate over the NSA’s bulk data collection program to raise campaign funds, using Twitter and email appeals to supporters and others to bolster Paul’s effort by donating money to his campaign.
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an adviser to Scott Walker.
