Eric Schmitt defends perjury trap airball at Jack Smith hearing: ‘Not a mistake’

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said he made no mistake when he tried to place former special counsel Jack Smith in Atlanta during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, rejecting the idea that he mixed up an NBA game and a college women’s basketball game.During the hearing on Tuesday, Schmitt told Smith he had “a series of text messages” that place him at a “Hawks” game on Feb. 3, 2024. Schmitt suggested the reference meant an Atlanta Hawks NBA game and questioned whether Smith had traveled to Georgia to meet with then-Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.The attempt fell flat when Smith said the basketball game he recalled attending featured Caitlin Clark in Maryland, not an NBA game in Georgia. Schmitt appeared to have mixed up the Atlanta Hawks NBA team and the University of Iowa’s women’s basketball team, the Hawkeyes. Schmitt was asked about the exchange following the hearing by TMZ but dismissed the idea that he made a mistake with his line of questioning.“There’s not a mistake,” Schmitt said. “I asked him if he was in Atlanta. The only NBA game going on, actually the only NCAA men’s game or NBA game with a 7:30 tipoff was in Atlanta. So I asked him if he was in Atlanta that night.”When asked by CNN about the same exchange, Schmitt joked, “Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan?”The Atlanta Hawks hosted the Golden State Warriors at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 3, while Iowa played the University of Maryland in College Park at 8 p.m. Smith said Department of Justice records could corroborate his attendance at the Iowa-Maryland game.The senator from Missouri had cautioned Smith of perjuring himself when asking about the basketball game. Schmitt concluded his questioning about the former counsel’s whereabouts on Feb. 3 by calling Smith a “total dirtbag.”The distinction became a point of contention during the hearing. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) accused Schmitt of relying on false information to suggest Smith had secretly traveled to Atlanta, saying Schmitt had mixed up the Hawks and Hawkeyes.Klobuchar also addressed Schmitt’s flub after the hearing.HAWKS OR HAWKEYES? ERIC SCHMITT’S JACK SMITH GRILLING RUNS INTO BASKETBALL MIX-UP “He accused Jack Smith of perjury in the moment and said, ‘Don’t perjure yourself.’ And then he ended his questions by calling him a dirtbag,” Klobuchar said. “Those were his exact words. So my point was, don’t call someone a dirtbag when you don’t have your own facts right.”The questioning was tied to broader Republican scrutiny of whether Smith’s federal investigation coordinated with Willis’s separate prosecution of President Donald Trump. Smith testified that he did not meet with Willis or Nathan Wade, the prosecutor who led the Georgia racketeering case against Trump.