NYT: Christie Has 'Exaggerated' His Counter-Terror Record

There's no love lost between Chris Christie and the New York Times (remember this Oct. 29 "go home" editorial and this tweet in reply from Christie?), and the paper's latest Christie-focused article isn't likely going to change that. In a piece titled "In Sales Pitch, Christie Spins His Version of Security Record," Alexander Burns and Charlie Savage point out that Christie-the-2016-candidate frequently trumpets his time as US attorney for New Jersey as a differentiator and reflective of his superior counter-terror skills. The upshot of Burns and Savage's piece is that "he has, at times, overstated the significance of the terrorism prosecutions he oversaw ... and appears to have exaggerated his personal role in obtaining court permission for surveillance of terrorism suspects."

Their piece details some cases that they believe illustrate this point; one involves a statement Christie made at the Dec. 15 GOP debate. Per Hot Air, "We prosecuted two of the biggest terrorism cases in the world and stopped Fort Dix from being attacked by six American radicalized Muslims from a Mosque in New Jersey," Christie said. Burns and Savage point out that the two "biggest" terror cases were FBI stings that "used confidential informants to create the situations in which the defendants implicated themselves." Regardless of whether such tactics should be used, the fact remains that neither "involved actual attacks," nor did they "involve plots that almost reached fruition without law enforcement knowledge," making "two of the biggest" an overstatement in their view. Read their full piece, which also touches on how Christie frames his involvement with the prosecution of Daniel Pearl's kidnapper, here. (More Chris Christie stories.)