Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Thursday that he would immediately fire Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two federal cases against him, if he wins the November election.
The former US president was asked during an interview with Hugh Hewitt, the host of a conservative podcast, whether he would pardon himself or dismiss Smith on his first day back in the White House.
“It’s so easy. I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump said.
Smith, who was appointed special counsel by Democratic President Joe Biden’s attorney general Merrick Garland, filed two cases against Trump after he left the White House.
The former president was indicted in Washington in August 2023 on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Biden.
He was charged in Florida with mishandling classified documents but that case was dismissed by District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee.
Trump praised Cannon as a “brave, brilliant judge” during Thursday’s interview.
A US president does not have the authority to dismiss a special counsel, but if reelected Trump could appoint a new attorney general who could do so.
A Trump-appointed attorney general could also have the federal cases against him thrown out.
Trump, 78, had been scheduled to go on trial on the election subversion charges in March but the case was frozen while his lawyers argued that an ex-president should be immune from criminal prosecution.
The Supreme Court ruled in July that a former president has broad immunity from prosecution for official acts conducted while in office, but can be pursued for unofficial acts.
Trump is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding — the session of Congress that was to certify Biden’s 2020 election victory — when it was violently attacked by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021.
The former president is also accused of seeking to disenfranchise US voters with his false claims that he won the 2020 election.
In May, Trump was convicted in New York of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
He also faces racketeering charges in Georgia related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
