Labour's alleged "election interference" against Donald Trump could cause a "speed bump" in UK-US election if the 78-year-old becomes the 47th President, Republicans Overseas UK's Greg Swenson has told GB News.Sir Keir Starmer was embroiled in scathing complaint by the 2024 White House hopef…
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump said Thursday 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 legal cloud hanging over him. Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022, charged the former president over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents.
“It’s so easy. I would fire him within two seconds,†Trump responded. “He’ll be one of the first things addressed.â€
Trump, who regularly assails Smith and suggested before that he would fire him if he were president, called Smith a “crooked person.â€
Trump, if elected, 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 Mueller, Trump urged his then-White House counsel, Don McGahn, to press the Justice Department to terminate Mueller. McGahn refused.
Smith 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 Smith appealed. The other, charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, was delayed by a Supreme Court opinion conferring broad immunity for official acts made while 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.
Democrat Kamala Harris’ campaign sought to use revelations from Smith’s investigations into Trump against the Republican candidate. They 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 on Thursday, 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. Never spoke to her. But we had a brave and very brilliant judge.â€
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Meanwhile, lawyers for Trump told a federal judge Thursday the election interference case against him should be dismissed, arguing Smith was illegally appointed and that funding for his office should be cut off.
The argument mirrors the one that persuaded Cannon to dismiss the case charging Trump with illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Smith's team appealed that dismissal, calling Cannon's order contrary to decades of precedent.
The Washington case charges Trump with scheming to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to the violent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when his supporters stormed the building.
The Trump argument faces an uphill battle in the election interference case, where the judge, Tanya Chutkan, last month said that she did not find Cannon's rationale "particularly persuasive."
At issue is Smith's November 2022 appointment to the special counsel's job by Attorney General Merrick Garland. He reached outside the Justice Department to select Smith — at the time a war crimes prosecutor in the Hague — following the same special counsel appointments process used by attorney generals in both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Garland, Trump's lawyers wrote, "violated the Appointments Clause by naming private-citizen Smith to target President Trump, while President Trump was campaigning to take back the Oval Office from the Attorney General's boss, without a statutory basis for doing so."
They added: "Everything that Smith did since Attorney General Garland's appointment, as President Trump continued his leading campaign against President Biden and then Vice President Harris, was unlawful and unconstitutional."
In dismissing the documents case in Florida, Cannon concluded that no statute permitted Smith's appointment — and said the appointment was unconstitutional because he was installed directly by the attorney general without receiving Senate confirmation.
Her ruling cited an opinion days earlier from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that cast doubt on the legality of Smith's appointment.
Smith's team, by contrast, says there are no fewer than four statutes that authorized his appointment and warns that Cannon's ruling, if permitted to stand, could call into question the legitimacy of hundreds of personnel appointments across the Executive Branch.
Trump's lawyers in the election case sought to piggyback Thursday on the opinions of Cannon and Thomas, requesting Chutkan's permission to file a formal motion to dismiss the case.
"The proposed motion establishes that this unjust case was dead on arrival — unconstitutional even before its inception," they wrote.
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