Apparent confusion over team names derailed a line of questioning as Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) grilled former special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday about his attendance at a basketball game, suggesting the prosecutor may have coordinated with others bringing charges about President Trump.
The exchange would later prompt Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) to say the panel had been “witness to a narrative, a false narrative of accusing [Smith] of being at a game that you were nowhere near, and I suppose that was supposed to be in furtherance of some sort of conspiracy.”
Schmitt asked Smith if he had traveled to Atlanta in 2024 to watch an Atlanta Hawks basketball game, alluding to the trip as a chance to meet Fani Willis, the top prosecutor in the city. Willis also brought charges against Trump.
Schmitt said he had texts referencing the game, though a board displaying the messages was only briefly shown by the senator’s staff.
Schmitt seemed surprised when Smith said he did not recall going to Atlanta during that time period and also said he did not meet Willis. For his part, Smith seemed puzzled.
“I really don’t think so. It’s possible I flew through the Atlanta airport on the way to Florida, but I do not have a recollection of going to Atlanta. I definitely did not go to a Hawks game,” Smith said.
The significance of the trip from Schmitt’s perspective was that the February 2024 game he referenced was the day after Willis revealed she was in a relationship with one of her own staffers, sparking a firestorm of scrutiny around the already high-profile Fulton County election interference case.
“Let me just give you a little context. The day before Fani Willis came clean with her affair with the prosecutor, you know, the Atlanta prosecutor that was also trying to get Trump. The next day, were you in Atlanta?” Schmitt asked.
Smith said he had at one point attended an Iowa Hawkeyes game in Maryland, as he wanted to watch Caitlin Clark play.
Schmitt’s questioning ended with the lawmaker calling Smith a “villain” and “dirtbag.”
Amid protests from Democrats, Schmitt initially refused to again show the text messages he displayed on the board, prompting some to say Smith deserved to see what he was being asked to respond to. Schmitt later relented.
The text messages show one prosecutor on Smith’s team having booked a meeting room only to be told by another staffer that Smith is “already down here.” The text messages he displayed don’t reference any basketball team names or games, though Schmitt at one point told Smith, “I don’t think you know that we have this stuff.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who was next in line for questioning, posited that Schmitt may have confused the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes.
“Could it then be that University of Iowa is the Hawkeyes? … That might be the confusion over the names of the team,” she said.
“That might be the confusion over the names of the team. But perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully.”
Schmitt then snapped that Klobuchar was trying to “rehabilitate the witness.”
After wrapping her questioning, Klobuchar criticized Schmitt for calling the prosecutor a “dirtbag.”
“We have confirmed that, in fact, you are right, Mr. Smith. Iowa, the Iowa Hawkeyes, played Maryland on Feb. 3, 2024. The final score was 93 to 85. Iowa won, and Caitlin Clark scored over 30 points, so it must have been a pretty good game. The game was, in fact, in Maryland, Mr. Smith,” she said.
“And I would just say, for a U.S. senator to have false information and 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 that day in what was happening in Georgia and then call you a dirtbag is something that deserves an apology.”
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