Christie: It sounds like prosecutors have corroborating evidence against Trump beyond Cohen

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Sunday that the language federal prosecutors are using to refer to President Trump in an indictment against Michael Cohen makes it sound as if they might have corroborating evidence that the president violated campaign finance law. 

“The language in the sentencing memo is different from what we’ve heard before,” Christie told ABC’s “This Week,” noting that Trump’s former attorney Cohen has previously said he violated campaign finance law at the president’s direction. “The only thing that would concern me if I was the president’s team this morning about this sentencing memo is the language.”

{mosads}”The language sounds very definite,” Christie said. “And what I’d be concerned about is, what corroboration do they have?”

“Because everyone knows that Michael Cohen is not going to be the most effective or trustworthy witness on the stand, given some of his past statements,” Christie said. “When prosecutors sound that definitive they’ve got more usually than just one witness.”

“Now the flip-side for the prosecutors is, they’d better have more than one witness on this because if you’re shooting at the president of the United States and the only bullet in your gun is Michael Cohen, well I think that’s a problem,” Christie added.

“So I think it’s going to be very interesting to see how this thing plays out.”

Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis, an opinion contributor to The Hill, said in August that there may be no evidence beyond Cohen’s testimony that he violated campaign finance law at Trump’s behest.

Federal prosectors in New York on Friday indicated without using his name that Trump directed Cohen to steer money to pay off two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump to prevent negative information from from surfacing in the midst of his 2016 campaign, breaking campaign finance law.

Christie said that he’s maintained that “the Michael Cohen situation is much more perilous for the White House than was [special counsel] Bob Mueller.”

“There’s no Russia collusion, there’s been no proof of Russia collusion, and I don’t think there’s gonna be,” Christie said. “This is the stuff that should be much more concerning to the White House legal team and that language is very very strong and very definitive so the prosecutors better have corroboration.”

Former Gov. Chris Christie says “the Michael Cohen situation is much more perilous for the White House than Bob Mueller.”

“If [prosecutors] do have corroboration, that could be a problem for the White House,” he adds https://t.co/QasWMG5Ixy #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/Jnm1BgG2iV

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) December 9, 2018