After the dismissal of F.B.I. Director James Comey and subsequent cascade of damaging revelations, the president's trip, along with most of the West Wing, to the Middle East and Europe, seemed a welcome respite from a damning news flow. But beneath the relatively placid surface, currents are still churning as the White House prepares for life with a special counsel.
Last week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told people that Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s 36-year-old senior adviser and son-in-law, asked him if Trump should hire a lawyer, according to two people familiar with the conversation. A spokesman for Christie, who was responsible for prosecuting Kushner's father, denied that the governor talked to Kushner about anything related to seeking outside counsel. An administration source said that the conversation about retaining counsel "simply did not happen." Both sides confirmed that a phone call between them took place, as the two talk frequently.
On Monday evening, The Washington Post reported that Trump and his advisers are well into the process of putting together an outside team of prominent attorneys to address the ongoing federal and congressional investigations.
Christie, a former U.S. attorney and current unofficial adviser to the president, who has known Comey for 15 years, had, until this week, largely avoided commenting on the news swirling around the Trump administration and on the investigations. In a press conference last week in New Jersey, he shut down three questions related to Trump, Comey, and the F.B.I. "I have humored you for long enough," Christie said after the final one was asked. "I am not going to get into this, as I’ve said to you many times." But on Monday, in another press conference in New Jersey, Christie opened up about General Mike Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser who is under investigation for his ties to Russia, and the fracas surrounding the president. "He’s not my cup of tea," the governor said about Flynn. "If I were president, I wouldn’t have let General Flynn in," he answered. "That’s not my choice. That’s the president’s choice." He also said that he feels "the president could be better-served than he's been served," according to CNN.
In private, according to one person who said Christie recounted his conversation with Kushner, Christie is said to have cautioned that the president "better lawyer up and keep his mouth shut," this person told me. (Brian Murray, a spokesman for Christie, said that "a phone conversation taking place regarding retention of counsel is categorically false. The conversation did not happen.")
That Kushner would seek Christie’s legal advice on a matter pertaining to a family member raises eyebrows. Christie, after all, prosecuted a case against Kushner’s father, Charles, more than a decade ago. The elder Kushner ended up pleading guilty to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign donations. Jared Kushner, who visited his father in an Alabama prison most weekends while he was serving out his sentence, initially had a harder time accepting Christie into the campaign inner-circle once the New Jersey governor dropped his own presidential bid and threw his weight behind Trump. He reportedly balked at Christie as a vice-presidential nominee, and once Trump won the election in November, played an influential role in removing him from his post as head of the transition team. As sources explained to me last year, Kushner believed Christie was responsible for his father not getting out of prison 28 days early, as the family had expected him to.
But a White House official told me earlier this year that the two buried the hatchet months ago in order to serve the administration together. When the White House announced that Kushner would helm a sweeping Office of American Innovation within the White House, they appointed Christie to head its opioid task force—allowing the two to work closely together under Kushner's purview. Sources confirmed to me last week that they now talk often.
