Trump says if he takes office, he’ll fire special counsel Jack Smith ‘within two seconds’

WASHINGTON —  Donald Trump said Thursday that if he wins the White House, he will fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” of taking office.

Trump was asked during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he would first pardon himself or terminate Smith to remove the felony criminal charges against him. Smith, who was appointed by Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland in 2022, has indicted the former president over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as his alleged mishandling of classified documents and obstruction of that inquiry.

“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.”

If elected, Trump could order the Justice Department to remove Smith. Trump probably would not be able to do it on his own because Smith is not a presidential appointee.

When Trump, while president, was investigated by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Trump urged his then-White House counsel, Donald McGahn, to press the Justice Department to terminate 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 felonies related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, has been delayed by a Supreme Court opinion conferring broad immunity for official acts by a 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.

Democrat Kamala Harris’ campaign has sought to use revelations from Smith’s investigations into Trump against the Republican candidate. The Harris campaign released an ad 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, whom he appointed and who dismissed the classified documents case. “We had a brave, brilliant judge in Florida,” he said.

In addition to the special counsel’s indictments against him, Trump is awaiting sentencing next month for his felony criminal conviction in a New York case related to a hush money payment to a porn actor.

Merica and Tucker write for the Associated Press.