 "Trump pledges to fire Jack Smith in 'two seconds' if he becomes the president")
In yet another provocative remark, former US President Donald Trump said that he would fire special counsel Jack Smith in “two seconds” if he gets re-elected as the president of the United States. Many touted the proclamation as Trump’s clear intent to shut down the two criminal cases Smith brought against him.
The remarks from Trump came with just 12 days left to the highly anticipated November polls. The Republican presidential nominee unleashed a barrage of insults at Smith while speaking to conservative podcast host Hugh Hewitt. Trump was asked whether he would pardon himself or fire the special counsel first.
“Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy … I would fire him within two seconds,” the former president said about Smith, who has charged Trump in two high-profile cases in the last two years. One deals with the classified documents Trump hid in Mar-a-Lago and the other one deals with the Republican politician’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 US Presidential elections.
Trump mentioned in the interview that he had been given immunity from the US Supreme Court last year. The apex court found that the former presidents are immune from prosecution for official actions related to the office of the presidency.
Can Trump fire Jack Smith?
It is pertinent to note that the power to fire the US special counsel formally rests on the attorney general. However, in the past, the business-mogul-turned politician expressed no intention to appoint a loyalist to the position who might also agree to withdraw the justice department from the two pending criminal cases.
In the past, Trump has tried to fire prosecutors who attempted to investigate him personally. During his first term in office, the former president repeatedly tried to fire the special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Trump’s ties to Russian interference in the 2020 election.
He ultimately had to back off after the White House counsel, Don McGahn, disagreed with Trump’s attempts to fire Mueller and threatened to quit. However, multiple current and former Trump advisers have suggested that there would be no such hurdles if he comes back to the office.
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign maintained that Trump’s latest comments indicated the fact that the former president thinks he is above the law.
With inputs from agencies.
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