GOP senator airballs perjury claim against Jack Smith over apparent Hawks/Hawkeyes mixup

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., wrongly accused former special counsel Jack Smith of lying under oath during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Smith's discontinued investigations of President Donald Trump, apparently because he confused two similarly named teams. Schmitt asked whether Smith had attended a Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks game on Feb. 3, 2024, the day after Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, acknowledged a romantic relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade. Smith said he did not believe he had been in Atlanta and was sure he never went to a Hawks game. A staffer briefly displayed a poster of text messages before removing it. Schmitt told Smith he had already perjured himself and later said he would go down in history as "a total dirtbag.", according to NBC News.

Smith said the only game he recalled from that period was a University of Maryland contest against the Iowa Hawkeyes featuring Caitlin Clark, and he noted that the Marshals Service had accompanied him. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said her staff confirmed that Iowa played Maryland that day, in Maryland, and that Iowa won 93-85. She said Schmitt's mistake deserved an apology.

Schmitt did not apologize. He told NBC News that a prosecutor would decide whether Smith perjured himself and that his job was to ask questions. Some conservative figures, including Benny Johnson, praised the exchange, though Johnson's post appeared to have been deleted by late afternoon. On "The Charlie Kirk Show," Schmitt defended his line of questioning.

Summarized by PolitiKool from NBC News’s reporting. Read the full story at NBC News →