A Republican attempt to suggest that former special prosecutor Jack Smith had colluded with Georgia officials unravelled during a US Senate hearing after the senator leading the questioning confused two basketball teams and the locations of their games.
Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, questioned Smith over whether he had attended an NBA game between the Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors in Atlanta on February 3, 2024.
The date was significant because it came shortly after Fani Willis, then Fulton County’s district attorney, acknowledged an intimate relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor who had worked on her case against Donald Trump.
Schmitt appeared to imply that Smith’s supposed presence in Atlanta suggested he may have met or worked with Willis and Wade. A large poster displaying text messages said to place Smith at the Hawks game was held up during the hearing.
Smith denied attending the game and said he had never met either Willis or Wade while serving as special counsel. Schmitt nevertheless suggested that the witness had committed perjury.
When Smith was shown the messages, he recalled attending a different basketball fixture around that time: a game involving the University of Iowa Hawkeyes at the University of Maryland. It featured Caitlin Clark, the highly regarded women’s basketball player.
The apparent mix-up was that Schmitt’s team had treated the Iowa Hawkeyes game as an Atlanta Hawks game. Footage later emerged appearing to show Smith in the stands at the Iowa fixture in Maryland on the night in question.
Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar criticised Schmitt during the hearing, saying: “You are calling a witness a ‘dirtbag’. I think that people should have their facts straight before they accuse someone of being a dirtbag – and not get the teams wrong.”
The episode was subsequently promoted by prominent pro-Trump commentators, who presented Schmitt’s questioning as a successful confrontation despite the mistaken identification of the game.
Schmitt did not withdraw the allegation when questioned later. Appearing on a pro-Trump television channel, he continued to defend the exchange, and when approached by TMZ he said: “It was not a mistake.”
The hearing was part of an inquiry into alleged abuse of authority and the targeting of Republicans by Smith, who twice brought criminal charges against Trump while he was out of office.
Smith told senators that his investigation had produced proof beyond reasonable doubt that Trump had committed serious crimes against the United States. He said he would make the same decision to prosecute a former president again if presented with the same facts, regardless of political party.
