Donald Trump expressed Thursday the intention, if elected, to “fire” special prosecutor Jack Smith who is prosecuting him for attempts to illegally reverse the results of the previous US presidential election in 2020.
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The former president and Republican candidate responded during an interview in a conservative podcast to whether, in the event of victory in the November 5 election, he would pardon himself or have the special prosecutor fired.
“I would fire him in two seconds,” he said, calling Jack Smith, one of the favored targets of his attacks for more than a year, a “very dishonest man.”
AFP
The special prosecutor issued a revised indictment against Donald Trump on August 27 following the Supreme Court’s decision on August 1er July granting the President of the United States a broad presumption of criminal immunity.
A month later, Jack Smith developed in a voluminous written document, largely redacted to preserve the anonymity of witnesses, his arguments to demonstrate the private nature of the acts for which the ex-president is being prosecuted.
According to him, these acts performed as a candidate for re-election in 2020 are not covered by the president’s criminal immunity for his “official acts”.
Following his loss to Democratic candidate Joe Biden, “with the help of private accomplices, the defendant embarked on a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate results in seven states he had narrowly lost,” wrote Jack Smith.
“The heart of the scheme was private in nature. He extensively used private actors and his campaign structures to attempt to overturn the results of the election and acted in his private capacity as a candidate,” he concluded.
Targeted by several criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is doing everything possible to go to trial as late as possible, at least after the vote.
If he were elected again, once inaugurated in January 2025, he could order a halt to federal proceedings against him.
