(L)ook at the chronology:
* In January 2006, Chris Christie was on a list of US Attorney's who were being looked at for replacement.
* In September 2006, in the midst of a hard-fought US Senate campaign being dominated by accusations of corruption, Chris Christie authorizes a last minute subpoena that plays into Tom Kean Jr.'s political attacks against Bob Menendez.
* In November 2006, after the election is over, Chris Christie is taken off the list and allowed to keep his job.The only defense Republican Christie can use for himself is that he was not told he was on the bubble, so he can say that he was never pressured by the Republican White House to implicate Democrat Menendez in a scandal in a way that assisted Republican Kean.
Of course, that defense means that the White House didn't pressure Christie, and he took this action on his own without any prodding. In other words, he did not need to be prodded by the White House to do this, and as a result the White House decided to remove his name from the list.
