Jeffrey Toobin, the legal analyst at CNN and The New Yorker, delivered the week’s most righteous rant over President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey. “Can we point out that the emperor is not wearing any clothes?” he asked on Tuesday night. “This is an investigator who is investigating the White House,” he said, exasperated, “and he was just fired by the White House.” Then Toobin seized on the most dire consequence of Comey’s removal: that Trump might appoint a new FBI director who would end the bureau’s probe into potential Trump campaign connections to Russia’s interference in last year’s election. “They will put in a stooge who will shut down this investigation,” Toobin said. “Donald Trump will put in, maybe Chris Christie, someone who will do his bidding.”

With the exception of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who insists he isn’t getting the position, Christie is the biggest Trump loyalist under consideration to replace Comey. Trump fired Christie as head of his presidential transition team back in November, then passed him over for attorney general. But the president did reportedly offer him other cabinet posts, which he declined, and the two have remained in close contact in recent months. Governor Christie is massively unpopular in New Jersey, due in part to the Bridgegate scandal, so a major appointment from Trump is his best chance for a political lifeline. Not that his selection would go over smoothly.

So Chris Christie is on all the lists for FBI director. Laughable. Outrageous. From Bridgegate to Trump crony, completely inappropriate. — Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) May 10, 2017

The New Republic’s Eric Armstrong wrote on Wednesday that Christie’s appointment would give Trump a “yes-man FBI director” at a time when America desperately needs one who’s independent and impartial. Christie watchers generally concur.

“I’m of two minds about whether he would be a loyalist or not,” said WNYC political reporter Matt Katz, a longtime Christie chronicler who published a biography of the governor last year. “To his credit, when he was U.S. attorney, he went after any number of corrupt Republican politicians.” Since Christie endorsed Trump’s presidential bid last year, though, Katz said his politics have been entirely different: “He has not been the non-partisan, corruption-fighting hero that he used to be.”



After Christie failed to gain traction in last year’s Republican presidential primary, he was the first Republican governor and an early establishment figure to get behind Trump. Katz says Christie always liked the president, with whom he shares a “New York-New Jersey bravado and smack-talking approach to humor and conversation.” The two first met over a decade ago, when Christie was New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor and Trump owned Atlantic City casinos. The New York Times reported that the governor enjoyed touting their friendship: “Much like Mr. Trump, Mr. Christie had shown that he liked to be around People Who Matter.” Christie professed his affection for Trump even as he campaigned against him in last year’s primary, and he has remained fiercely loyal to Trump since endorsing him.