Senator Eric Schmitt thought he had Jack Smith dead to rights.
Smith, the former special counsel for the Department of Justice, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday over his role in investigating Donald Trump attempt to overthrow
the results of the 2020 election. Schmitt, a Trump loyalist, wanted to nail him down on a complicated web of alleged lies and collusion with Georgia officials, who were also investigating the president.
Schmitt’s key point of evidence: Smith’s presence at an Atlanta Hawks game in Georgia a day after Fani Willis, the Fulton County prosecutor, admitted to a relationship with someone on her team. There was just one problem. Smith was never at the game. Instead, as a stunned Judiciary Committee eventually discovered, he attended an Iowa Hawkeyes game against Maryland on the same day.
The arc of this little absurdist drama was incredible to watch play out.
“Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks on February 3, 2024?” Schmitt began, believing he was teeing up Smith to perjure himself.
Smith was confused, though. He said he didn’t even recall being in Atlanta while investigating Trump, except maybe connecting through the airport.
Schmitt started licking his chops. “I don’t think that you know that we have this stuff, so I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t perjure yourself,” he says, triumphantly, while displaying a giant blown up photo of two text messages for a few seconds.
“You just took it down really quick, if I could look at it again,” Smith says, bemused.
“I think you’ve already perjured yourself,” Schmitt says, as the hearing starts to devolve. Amy Klobuchar gets involved, ensuring that Smith can read the text exchange Schmitt quickly displayed. Smith finally realizes what’s going on, telling Klobuchar that he attended a game between the University of Maryland and University of Iowa because Caitlin Clark was playing.
Klobuchar then realizes the confusion, smiling. “Could it then be that University of Iowa is the Hawkeyes? Could that be it?”
Schmitt then explodes, completely losing his top over Klobuchar trying to “rehabilitate the witness.” After some heated back and forth, Klobuchar sinks the dagger. “From the state of Minnesota where we have the Gophers — there’s not a lot of confusion, there’s not a lot of professional teams with those names.”
Someone off camera eventually gets Klobuchar the full receipts, and she lays it all out for the record, noting the date of the game — Feb. 3, 2024, sure enough — and score, and remarking that Caitlin Clark scored 30 points.
“I would just say for a U.S. Senator to have false information and to imply based on a confusion about the name of a team — which I knew, knowing my midwestern sports — and imply that you were in another city, that you were somehow involved in that day in what was happening in Georgia and then call you a dirtbag is something that deserves an apology,” Klobuchar says, driving every point home.
Schmitt can really only blame himself. It’s clear that Schmitt thought he was going to strike a grand blow on behalf of the Trump administration in a punitive investigation that would lend any sort of credence to Trump’s fantastical claims that Smith’s initial investigation into him were politically motivated. Earlier in the hearing, he even jumped on Smith for committing the crime of taking notes.
“I have a feeling that your testimony is going to be read back to you in subsequent hearings,” Schmitt started smugly. Smith jotted down a note in response. “I’m just curious, what are you writing down there?”
“I’m sorry?” Smith replies. “Never mind,” Schmitt said.
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