Trump says he will fire special counsel Jack Smith ‘within 2 seconds’ if re-elected
By DAN MERICA and ERIC TUCKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” of taking office if re-elected in November.
Trump was asked during a friendly interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he’d first pardon himself or terminate Smith to remove the legal cloud hanging over him as president. Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022, has charged Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents.
“It’s so easy. I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump responded. “He’ll be one of the first things addressed.”
Trump, who regularly assails Smith and has suggested before that he would fire him if he were president, called Smith a “crooked person.”
Trump, if elected, could order the Justice Department to remove Smith, though he would probably not be able to do it on his own since Smith is not a presidential appointee.
When he was investigated by a different special counsel as president, Trump urged his then-White House counsel, Don McGahn, to press the Justice Department to terminate Robert Mueller. McGahn refused.
Smith has brought two federal cases against Trump. One, accusing him of illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, was dismissed in July, a decision that Smith is appealing. The other, charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, has been delayed by a Supreme Court opinion conferring broad immunity for official acts made while president.
After Trump said he would fire Smith, Hewitt raised the possibility that Congress could impeach Trump over that move. Trump said he did not believe that would happen.
“I don’t think they’ll impeach me if I fire Jack Smith,” Trump said. “Jack Smith is a scoundrel.”
Democrat Kamala Harris’ campaign has sought to use revelations from Smith’s investigations into Trump against the Republican candidate. They released an ad earlier this month that featured video from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and headlines from Smith’s investigation.
“He knew what he was doing,” the ad shows on screen.
While Trump criticized Smith, he praised U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee who dismissed the classified documents case against the former president in July.
“We had a brave, brilliant judge in Florida,” Trump said. “She’s a brilliant judge, by the way. I don’t know her. I never spoke to her. Never spoke to her. But we had a brave and very brilliant judge.”