Donald Trump says he’d fire special counsel Jack Smith in ‘two seconds’ if elected again
“Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy. … I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump said of Smith.
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Former president Donald Trump said Thursday that he would “fire” special counsel Jack Smith on his first day back in the White House if he is elected again, making clear that he would push to drop a pair of federal cases against him.
In an interview Thursday morning with conservative podcast host Hugh Hewitt, Trump was asked what he would do if he had to choose between firing Smith or pardoning himself at the start of a second term.
“Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy. … I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump said of Smith, who is leading the Justice Department’s investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the hoarding of classified documents.
As part of the election-related investigation, Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2023 on four criminal counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
The classified-documents case has been dismissed, but Smith is appealing.
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The authority to hire and fire a special counsel falls to the attorney general. But if Trump wins the election, he is expected to appoint an attorney general who would dismiss both federal cases against him.
Smith was appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee both investigations.
Smith and the Justice Department are not involved in two state criminal cases that Trump has faced, including his conviction this spring in Manhattan of fraud related to a hush money payment ahead of the 2016 election. In a pending case, he faces an indictment in Georgia for alleged election interference in that state.