During a high-profile Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 29, 2026, Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt accused former special counsel Jack Smith of perjury and called him a dirtbag. The aggressive line of questioning collapsed after Schmitt confused an Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball game with an Atlanta Hawks professional game.
Jack Smith Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Committee
Former special counsel Jack Smith faced testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., as he defended his previous federal investigations into United States President Donald Trump. It’s a high-profile public hearing of national intrigue, but it took a wild turn on Tuesday when a Republican Senator falsely accused him of perjury and called him a “dirtbag” over the mistaken identity of Caitlin Clark’s college team, the Iowa Hawkeyes. Smith was appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a grilling over his investigations into Trump’s involvement in the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, and keeping the nation’s most highly guarded secrets after he left office, and stashing them in his Mar-a-Lago bathroom. One of the two cases Smith brought as special counsel alleged that Trump illegally tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Separately, Georgia state prosecutors brought a criminal case alleging Trump and others conspired to overturn that election’s results, including by replacing the presidential electors for Georgia with Trump supporters. That case, along with both of Smith’s, were dropped after Trump’s 2024 election win.
Senator Eric Schmitt Questions Jack Smith on Atlanta Trip
The bizarre scene began when Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, asked Smith if he’d attended a professional basketball game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 2024. Smith immediately looked confused. I have no recollection of that,
he responded, saying he didn’t remember visiting Atlanta during his time as special counsel, apart from some potential trips through the airport. I definitely did not go to a Hawks game; I'm sure of that.
Schmitt then suggested Smith could have met with Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, about her election interference case against Trump. Let me give you a little context,
Schmitt said. 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 was referring to the undisclosed romantic relationship between Willis and Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor on her team, while managing the 2020 election interference racketeering case against Trump, which caused intense public scrutiny, hearings, and legal challenges. That news ultimately led to a court ruling removing Willis from prosecuting the case.
What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team,
Schmitt said, that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior-Hawks game on February 3, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair?
Staff behind Schmitt then put up a poster appearing to show alleged texts among them. But it was taken down in a matter of seconds. You just took it down really quick. If I could look at that again?
Smith asked. However, Schmitt declined to display the image again. We'll put it in a file. You can respond,
Schmitt responded, and then falsely claimed, I think you've already perjured yourself.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar Points Out Basketball Team Error
It turned out that Schmitt completely mixed up the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks with the Hawkeyes from the University of Iowa, where women’s basketball sensation Caitlin Clark was playing at the time. Smith appeared confused by the line of questioning and later said that he had attended a basketball game where the University of Maryland was playing Iowa around the time that Schmitt mentioned. You had the teams wrong, sir,
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said during the hearing.
Schmitt, a graduate of Missouri’s Truman State University and the Saint Louis University School of Law, who held a series of offices in his Republican-majority state, balked at admitting that he made an embarrassing mistake. When TMZ DC reporter Charlie Cotton asked him how the error occurred in an exchange on Tuesday, Schmitt said, It was not a mistake, I asked him if he was in Atlanta.
He added, …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.
Senator Eric Schmitt was tipped as a running mate for JD Vance in the 2028 election just hours earlier by a Trump-friendly influential email bulletin, Axios, which described him as trustworthy, intelligent, articulate and a deft political operator.
Instead Schmitt was publicly humiliated, just as D.C. was gossiping that he could be a running mate for JD Vance in 2028.