South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham has sent an ominous message to special counsel Jack Smith as Donald Trump was on the precipice of being announced as the winner of the 2024 election.
Early on Wednesday morning, mere moments before Trump took the stage in West Palm Beach, Florida, to give his victory speech, Graham posted a note on X “to Jack Smith and your team”.
“It is time to look forward to a new chapter in your legal careers as these politically motivated charges against President Trump hit a wall,” Graham wrote.
“The supreme court substantially rejected what you were trying to do, and after tonight, it’s clear the American people are tired of lawfare. Bring these cases to an end. The American people deserve a refund.”
The US attorney general Merrick Garland appointed Smith in November 2022 to determine whether Trump should face criminal charges stemming from investigations into the former’s president’s alleged mishandling of national security materials and his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Smith charged Trump last year in Florida over his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club, and in Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
With the election mere months away, Trump’s legal team tried to stall the proceedings as much as possible.
Their case was aided in July, when the supreme court conferred broad immunity on former presidents and narrowed the scope of the prosecution.
Smith and his team detailed their case against Trump in a 165-page filing that was unsealed in October, in which they argued that Trump should not be entitled to immunity from prosecution. In the filing, federal prosecutors said that Trump “resorted to crimes” in a failed bid to cling to power after losing the 2020 election and that he is not entitled to immunity from prosecution.
The charges filed by Smith and his team were not the only one vexing Trump since leaving office in 2021. When he takes office in January, Trump will be the first convicted criminal to win the White House and gain access to the nuclear codes.
In May, Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to a hush-money payment to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels. Sentencing was originally scheduled on 18 September, but delayed to 26 November after a request from Trump for it to be postponed until after the election. It’s unclear if the date will stand.
Since the unsealing of Smith’s case in October, Trump has spoken publicly about how he would immediately fire Smith if he were re-elected.
In a conversation with the conservative podcast host Hugh Hewitt, who asked whether Trump would pardon himself or fire the special counsel, Trump said: “Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy … I would fire him within two seconds.”
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
