Former President Donald Trump told a conservative radio host Thursday that if he wins reelection, he would fire special counsel Jack Smith within hours of his inauguration.
Smith is pursuing charges against Trump for his attempts to squirrel away classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Florida, and for his attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election in Washington. Although a federal judge dismissed the classified documents case in July, Smith is currently appealing the decision to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Right-wing pundit Hugh Hewitt asked Trump whether he would rather issue himself a pardon on the charges, or whether he would simply get rid of Smith.
“It’s so easy. I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump replied.
He also heaped praise on the judge who dismissed the documents case, Aileen Cannon, who is now reportedly under consideration for the role of attorney general in a second Trump administration.
“We had a brave, brilliant judge in Florida. She’s a brilliant judge, by the way,” Trump said.
Cannon ruled that Smith’s appointment had been unconstitutional because he was not appointed by the president or confirmed by Congress; rather, Smith had been appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to look into Trump’s election meddling.
The U.S. Supreme Court also threw a wrench into Smith’s work in July when a conservative majority handed down a watershed ruling on presidential immunity. In the court’s opinion, U.S. presidents have major legal leeway on the actions they take while in office.
However, the justices left to the lower courts the job of hashing out exactly which actions carry presidential immunity, dragging out the election interference case currently before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
If Trump loses the election, the cases against him could proceed to trial in what would be an extraordinary moment in U.S. history. But if he wins, he is expected to try to use the power of his office to shut them down.
Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, seized on Trump’s comment to Hewitt as an example of how the former president “thinks he’s above the law.”
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“A second Trump term, where a more unstable and unhinged Trump has essentially no guardrails and is surrounded by loyalists who will enable his worst instincts, is guaranteed to be more dangerous. America can’t risk a second Trump term,” Moussa said.