Chris Sununu says Trump’s accusation is ‘self-inflicted’ and expects ‘some sort of guilty verdict’

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (R) said Sunday The federal impeachment of Donald Trump about his handling of classified documents was “self-inflicted,” and he expects “some sort of guilty verdict” against the former president.

Trump faces 37 felony counts, including conspiracy to obstruct justice, willful withholding of national defense information and making false statements. He is accused of taking top-secret documents after he left the White House and blocking government efforts to recover them. Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, will appear in a Miami court on Tuesday.

“I had every chance in the world to return all those files and documents,” Sununu told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “He did the opposite. He bragged about keeping them. So this is very self-inflicted.”

The Republican Governor, who recently ruled himself out of the 2024 presidential race, said Trump should not be the party’s nominee and called on the other Republican candidates to acknowledge the seriousness of the charges. Trump has been citing the allegation of him in fundraising appeals and remains the GOP front-runner for 2024.

“This is serious,” Sununu said. “If at least half of these things are true, you’re in real trouble. And it’s self-inflicted. And I see a lot of the candidates trying to avoid it.”

For now, most of the Republican presidential hopefuls, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), have criticized the Justice Department without denouncing Trump. Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to pardon Trump.

DeSantis denounced the “weaponization” of government agencies and said there was no single “standard of fairness in the country.”

Only two candidates, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, have vigorously defended the Justice Department’s case against Trump.

“Is this the kind of behavior we want from someone who wants to be president of the United States?” Christie asked.

Sununu told CBS’s John Dickerson that he did not believe the charges were politically motivated, saying all politicians should recognize the unprecedented nature of the allegation.

“Everyone needs to be very upfront and transparent about it and acknowledge the reality of the seriousness of these allegations,” Sununu said.

This will likely “come down to some sort of guilty verdict on the president, on at least some of these charges,” he added.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr echoed Sununu, saying “Fox News Sunday” Trump is in real trouble if the spying allegations in the indictment are true.

“I think we have to wait and see what the defense says and what turns out to be true. But I do think that … if half of that is true, then it’s fried,” Barr said.