As my colleague Brian Beutler notes, Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey places us on the precipice of a crisis of presidential legitimacy. If ever there was a time for a special prosecutor and a competent, impartial FBI director, this is it. But because Trump is Trump he’s no doubt looking for a lap dog to replace Comey, one who can make the FBI’s investigation into his campaign go away. And there’s no more pathetic—and therefore appealing—lap dog than Chris Christie, whose name has already bubbled up as a possible successor to Comey.
The monumentally unpopular Christie spent the better part of the campaign debasing himself in sad and hilarious ways, the hope being that his loyalty to Trump would earn him a fancy cabinet job—attorney general, perhaps, or, god forbid, vice president. But even as Christie was passed over for each and every position, his support for Trump never wavered, and he’s still angling for a position in Trump’s government. With Comey’s sacking, Christie’s ignoble fealty could finally pay off.
This would be terrible for anyone who cares about democracy. As we inch ever closer to a full-blown crisis, the last thing we need is a yes-man FBI director who has fed on the president’s (gross) table scraps for months. And a corrupt one at that.