GOP senator accuses Jack Smith of perjury over apparent confusion between Hawks and Hawkeyes

His slam dunk was a brick.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., on Tuesday accused former special counsel Jack Smith of committing perjury when he denied attending a specific 2024 Atlanta Hawks basketball game — to Smith’s apparent confusion.

The attempted game of deception occurred during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Smith’s now-discontinued investigations into President Donald Trump. But it soon became clear that Schmitt had picked the wrong team.

“Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on February 3, 2024? » asked Schmitt.

“What city would this be in?” Smith replied, looking confused.

“Atlanta,” Schmitt replied.

“No,” Smith replied.

Schmitt pressed him again about whether he was in Atlanta on that date, then said he would give him “context” — it was the day after Fani Willis, the Fulton County, Ga., prosecutor, “came clean” about her romantic relationship with a prosecutor in her then-pending criminal case against Trump.

“The next day, were you in Atlanta?” » Schmitt continued.

“I don’t believe so,” Smith replied. “I definitely didn’t go to a Hawks game. I’m sure of that.”

Schmitt then asked if he had ever met with the local Atlanta prosecutors who indicted Trump. “No,” Smith said.

“What would you say if I received a series of text messages from your team saying that you were in Atlanta, during a Warrior-Hawks game, on February 3, 2024, the day after Willis and (Nathan) Wade announced their affair? Schmitt continued as a staff member held up a poster board containing three text messages about Smith’s attendance at an event.

The staff member quickly removed the poster as Smith looked on, appearing confused.

“I don’t think you know we have this stuff, so I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t perjure yourself,” Schmitt said.

Smith complained that it was removed too quickly and that he did not have a chance to examine it. “I think you’ve already perjured yourself,” Schmitt told him, later adding that he would go down in history as “a complete garbage bag.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who was next to question Smith, gave him the opportunity to respond further to Schmitt’s attack.

Smith said the only game he remembers attending during that time was a University of Maryland basketball game against the Iowa Hawkeyes with star player Caitlin Clark. “The Marshals Service was there with me. You could verify if that was the correct date,” Smith said.

Klobuchar then checked the date of the Maryland-Iowa game.

“We have confirmed that, in fact, you are correct, Mr. Smith. Iowa, the Iowa Hawkeyes, played Maryland on February 3, 2024. The final score was 93-85. Iowa won and Caitlin Clark scored 30 points,” and the game was in Maryland, she said.

She also criticized Schmitt for appearing to confuse the Hawks and Hawkeyes.

“I would just say for a United States senator to have false information and insinuate, based on a mix-up of the name of a team, that I knew, knowing my Midwest sports, and insinuate 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,” Klobuchar said.

Schmitt did not apologize. Asked by NBC News afterward whether he still believed Smith had perjured himself, he said, “We’ll find out. It’ll be up to the prosecutor to determine. My job here today was to ask questions and get answers.”

Despite this error, some right-wing commentators and media praised Schmitt for the exchange. Pro-Trump influencer Benny Johnson posted on The message appeared to have been deleted by late afternoon.

Schmitt later appeared on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” where one of the hosts congratulated him on this “great moment.” “Good for you,” said host Andrew Kolvet.

“I have to give you flowers for that, sir,” he said, saying Smith “was sitting there acting stunned and completely distraught.”

“It was the only men’s NBA or NCAA game in Atlanta at that time. He later claimed he was in another game,” Schmitt responded. “Here’s the thing: My job is to ask the questions. If that’s his answer, that’s his answer.”

On Tuesday evening, Schmitt wrote in an article on X: “Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan? »