Left: Special Counsel Jack Smith speaks about an August 2023 indictment of former President Donald Trump at a DOJ office in Washington (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File). Center: Aileen M. Cannon speaks remotely during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing (U.S. Senate). Right: Trump speaks with supporters at the Westside Conservative Breakfast, June 1, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File).
If former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, he’ll fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” and doesn’t think he’ll be impeached for a third time if he does so. That’s what Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday morning when asked if he’d pardon himself or can Smith to make his Mar-a-Lago and Jan. 6 federal prosecutions go away for good, according to a transcript.
During the interview, Trump riffed on several legal issues, mostly his, but he also took the time to say he wouldn’t pardon fellow convicted felon Hunter Biden, bashed his 2020 election-related Georgia RICO case top prosecutor Fulton County DA Fani Willis (D) as a prime example of Democrats’ “weaponization” of the justice system, and lavished praise on his appointee, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, for finding in July that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland unlawfully appointed Smith. As a result, Cannon dismissed the classified documents prosecution, tying the special counsel’s case up in appeals to this day and moving forward.
Here’s what Trump said.
On Jack Smith, Judge Cannon, and an immunity reference
Hewitt — asking questions under the assumption that Trump will defeat Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election — said Trump will have a “very tough choice the day after you take the oath of office”: Issue a self-pardon or fire Smith.
Trump first replied that the choice was “easy” as Smith is “[i]n fact” a “crooked person,” then he heaped praise on Cannon — without naming her — for her “brilliant” move to dismantle Smith’s authority to prosecute him.
“We had a brave, brilliant judge in Florida. 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. And what she has suffered through with these out of control people, she was listening to why, you know, putting out statements. She doesn’t move fast. She doesn’t do this. She doesn’t do that. Well, she moved fast. But the fact is, we had, and the big case was that case, the documents case. You [Hewitt] even said oh, that’s the big case.”
Notably, Trump’s praise of Cannon as “brilliant” and “brave” amid reporting that he was considering her as a candidate for U.S. attorney general as recently as Wednesday was cited by the defense team of Ryan Routh, the man accused of attempting to assassinate Trump in Florida as he golfed, in an attempt to secure Cannon’s recusal.
From there, Trump said it would take “two seconds” for him to fire Smith upon being sworn in.
“We won the documents case. We’re in the process of winning all the other cases, I think. Even sometimes when we have to go to appeal. We got immunity at the Supreme Court. It’s so easy,” he said. “I would fire him within two seconds. He’ll be one of the first things addressed.”
What about the possibility of a third impeachment?
Though twice-impeached and twice–acquitted the first time around, Trump claims to think he won’t be impeached for a third time if he fires Smith.
“Are you prepared to be impeached again and again and again if they have the House, because they just will?” Hewitt asked.
“No, I don’t think they’ll impeach me if [I] fire Jack Smith. Jack Smith is a scoundrel,” Trump said. “He’s a very dishonest man, in my opinion, very dishonest man. And he’s a mean man. He’s a mean man, but his problem is, he’s so mean that he always goes too far like the raid of Mar-A-Lago.”
Trump then referred to his demand for $100 million in damages from DOJ over the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago.
“You know, I’m going to sue them. I am suing them, essentially…but I’m suing them for raiding Mar-A-Lago,” he said. “They went into my young son’s room, and they went through his clothing. They went through my wife’s room. And they went through her clothing, as you know.”
Trump: Hunter Biden is a ‘bad boy’ who will not receive a pardon from me
Asked straight-up if he would pardon President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden — the first child of a sitting U.S. president to face a federal criminal trial and conviction while his parent holds the pardon power — Trump answered “I wouldn’t take it off the books” and falsely added that he didn’t call for Hillary Clinton to be locked up.
“See, unlike Joe Biden, despite what they’ve done to me, where they’ve gone after me so viciously, despite what, and Hunter’s a bad boy. There’s no question about it. He’s been a bad boy,” Trump said. “All you had to do is see the laptop from hell. But I happen to think it’s very bad for our country. I was, I think you know this, but most people don’t, because most people aren’t of your talent. I could have gone after Hillary. I could have gotten Hillary Clinton very easily. And when they say lock her up, whenever they said lock her, you know, they’d start, 30,000 people, lock her up, lock her up. What did I do? I always say take it easy, just relax.”
A parting shot for Fani Willis
Asked by Hewitt about “the Hitler stuff, the fascist stuff” in the news this week after Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly went on record with multiple major news organizations, Trump answered that Democrats are persecuting him because he has “a tendency to win.”
“They’ve weaponized government. They’ve weaponized everything. And it’s actually made me more popular. It’s hard to believe. That’s, they’re also going to be wrestling with for years, because every time they do something, it makes me more popular. And even I’m surprised about the others. But the people, the thing I’ve learned is the people are very smart. They get it,” Trump said, before mentioning DA Willis and her currently stalled RICO case. “They get it better than the Democrats get it. And every single time they’ve pulled that weaponization, every single time, with Fanni [sic], you know, Fanni [sic] is …with Fanni [sic], with everybody, every time they do this, it’s shocking. You know, my pollster will call me, ‘Sir, you’re up seven points.””
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