POLITICS & ELECTIONS

Utah House speaker calls for district attorney’s resignation over Trump post

Jul 21, 2024, 9:36 PM | Updated: 10:50 pm

SALT LAKE CITY Utah’s House speaker is calling on the Salt Lake County district attorney to resign over his social media post about former President Donald Trump.

Sim Gill, who has served as Salt Lake County’s top prosecutor since 2011, posted Saturday on X, formerly Twitter, that a “dead body is more competent than Trump to be President. It would do exponentially less harm to our democratic republic & honor our ideals more.”

That post led to sharp criticism from many X users, who pointed out that Trump recently survived an assassination attempt.

On Sunday evening, House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, called on the Democratic district attorney to step down.

“This type of hatred is absolutely inappropriate, especially coming from a DA. These types of comments only divide our State and our Country even further,” Schultz wrote on X. “Sim Gill’s radical left views, as demonstrated by his recent comment about our former president, have been detrimental to our state.”

Schultz went on to criticize Gill’s criminal justice policies that he alleged have made Salt Lake City less safe – a topic the Republican-controlled Legislature has focused on recently by passing a controversial bill that imposes new oversight measures on Gill’s office.

“Utahns deserve better – [Gill] needs to resign,” Schultz wrote.

No intention to resign

Gill told KSL TV Sunday evening he has no plans to step down.

“I clarified what I meant,” Gill said. “I abhor violence. I respectfully decline.”

That clarification came in a follow-up post from Gill late Sunday morning.

“In case you missed the point or misconstrued it, the point is that there is more thought in a pile of rocks, tree stump, a bucket of water than the current GOP nominee for President,” Gill wrote on X. “That is all.”

Schultz is not the only high-profile Utah politician who criticized Gill for his words. On Sunday, Gov. Spencer Cox – who made “disagreeing better” a centerpiece of his recent chairmanship of the National Governors Association – said the district attorney’s comments were “new low for Sim following a literal assassination attempt. Disgusting.”

Former President Trump was speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania last weekend when a 20-year-old man fired shots at him. Trump survived the assassination attempt with an ear injury, but former fire chief Corey Comperatore was killed while shielding his family from the bullets.

The would-be assassin was shot and killed by Secret Service agents.

 

 

 

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Utah House speaker calls for district attorney’s resignation over Trump post