Chris Christie says Trump took secret documents so he could keep pretending he was president

Republican presdential hopeful Chris Christie took aim at his rival Donald Trump over the latter’s legal troubles - suggesting Mr Trump had held on to classfied documents because “he wants to pretend he’s still president”.

Mr Christie made the comments in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, in which a number of people who have had working relationships with Mr Trump weighed in on his legal issues.

The former president, who is running for a second term in the White House, has been indicted on 37 federal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents – some of which pertain to matters of national security. Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has previously described the case against him as “a political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation”.

While Mr Trump’s former secretary of defence Mark Esper said he thought the former president may have kept the documents to further his own financial wellbeing in some way, Mr Christie had his own theory to put forward.

“I think he could not deal with the fact that he is the only person outside of the state of Delaware to ever lose to Joe Biden,” Mr Christie said, “And he wants to pretend he’s still president.”

“He takes these boxes with him, he flies them up – they’re in New Jersey now if he still has them. They’d be in New Jersey because they go on vacation with him.

“I mean he wanted to continue to pretend he was president and show these things to people and say ‘look what I still have, look what I still know’,” Mr Christie continued.

He added that when he campaigned with Mr Trump in 2016, he saw Mr Trump’s staff carry around a box of important business-related documents from Trump Tower which would be placed next to him on his plane.