WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump said Thursday he will fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” of taking office if he is re-elected in November.
Trump was asked during a friendly interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he would first pardon himself or fire Smith to clear the legal cloud hanging over him as president. Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022, has blasted Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents.
“It’s so easy. I would fire him in two seconds,” Trump responded. “He will be one of the first things addressed.”
Trump, who regularly attacks Smith and has previously suggested he would fire him if he were president, called Smith a “crooked person.”
If Trump is elected, he could order the Justice Department to impeach Smith, although he likely wouldn’t be able to do that alone since Smith is not a presidential appointee.
When he was investigated by another special counsel as president, Trump urged his then White House counsel, Don McGahn, to pressure the Justice Department to fire Robert Mueller. McGahn refused.
Smith has filed two federal cases against Trump. One, which accused him of illegally keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, was dismissed in July, a decision that Smith is appealing. The other, accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election, has been postponed by a Supreme Court opinion granting broad immunity for official acts committed during his presidency.
After Trump said he would fire Smith, Hewitt raised the possibility that Congress could impeach Trump over that move. Trump said he didn’t believe this would happen.
“I don’t think they’ll impeach me if I fire Jack Smith,” Trump said. “Jack Smith is a villain.”
Democrat Kamala Harris’ campaign has attempted to use revelations from Smith’s Trump investigation against the Republican candidate. They released an ad earlier this month that featured video of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and headlines from Smith’s investigation.
“He knew what he was doing,” the screen reads.
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. I never spoke to her. But we had a brave and very brilliant judge.”
