Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., deserves all the ridicule he’s getting after his comically failed attempt at catching former special counsel Jack Smith in a “gotcha moment” during Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Schmitt believed he had text messages proving Smith was at an Atlanta Hawks home game in February 2024, with the apparent implication that the special counsel was in Atlanta to meet with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who like Smith was prosecuting President Donald Trump for trying to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election. So convinced that he had the incriminating goods, Schmitt offered Smith a moment to consider his answer, lest he perjure himself.
We’ve got a U.S. Senate — the world’s greatest deliberative body, its members love to claim — controlled by a party that is tilting at windmills at the behest of a president who expects Republicans to demonstrate loyalty by adopting his lies as their own.
Smith, who had every reason to be confused at being asked about a basketball game he didn’t attend, eventually explained that he had gone to see the Iowa Hawkeyes’ women’s basketball team play on the night in question in College Park, Maryland.
The laughter has been loud and persistent both online and in real life, but, really, the joke’s on us. That’s because even without Schmitt’s pratfall of an interrogation, we’ve still got a U.S. Senate — the world’s greatest deliberative body, its members love to claim — controlled by a party that is tilting at windmills at the behest of a president who expects Republicans to demonstrate loyalty by adopting his lies as their own. Falsely accusing Smith of having attended a Hawks game is small potatoes in the larger context of Republicans’ vicious campaign against knowable, observable facts — and against anyone who dares suggest Trump is corrupt.
We all saw what Trump did — and what he didn’t do — on Jan. 6, 2021, in response to voters letting him know they didn’t want him as president anymore. And we saw the evidence that he hoarded boxes of classified government documents in gilded bathrooms at Mar-a-Lago. But Republicans have misrepresented every attempt to hold Trump accountable as persecution and accused Smith — whose no-nonsense demeanor is consistent with a claim made by a former Trump attorney that he plays everything by the book — of being a kind of political hitman assigned to bring down Trump.
Given everything that’s happening in our country and across the world, a truly great deliberative body would be laser-focused on solving the problems that continue to vex Americans — like persistent inflation (including the high price of food and gas), dwindling access to healthcare and a ruinous war of choice launched by a president who picked a former Fox News personality to run it. But, as Tuesday’s hearing revealed, Republicans would prefer to spend their time defending Trump’s honor.
“We have people running for office in the Republican Party that can’t even tell the truth, and today’s farce, today’s gaslighting, today’s mendacity, perfidy, lies, mistruths cannot obscure what the mountain of evidence and Americans saw with their own eyes,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.
Today’s farce, today’s gaslighting, today’s mendacity, perfidy, lies, mistruths cannot obscure what the mountain of evidence and Americans saw with their own eyes.”
SEN. CORY BOOKER, D-N.J.
Smith was a chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court at The Hague — investigating and prosecuting alleged war crimes — before former President Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, made him a special prosecutor presiding over the Trump cases. And yet, Schmitt used language that rejected the Senate’s reputed culture of civility and decorum, calling Smith a “villain” and a “dirtbag” and declaring, with no fear of contradiction, “I think you’ve already perjured yourself.”
And Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. — who played the sidekick in Schmitt’s losing game of gotcha by holding up the poster board with images of text messages from one of Smith’s staffers — told Smith during the hearing, “You make me want to throw up in my mouth.” The pivotal Senate committee hearing scene in “Coyote vs. Acme” was conducted with more seriousness and decorum, and it was chaired by Sen. Elmer Fudd.
We deserve better than a U.S. Senate whose members try to make a sport out of ruining decent people’s lives and refuse to acknowledge when they have been exposed as the hapless Coyote of “Looney Tunes” lore, trying to chase down and ensnare someone they’re never going to catch.
The pivotal Senate committee hearing scene in “Coyote vs. Acme” was conducted with more seriousness and decorum, and it was chaired by Sen. Elmer Fudd.
Video footage has since emerged that places Smith in Maryland on the date in question, where he said he was. When Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Smith’s testimony had proved that Schmitt was wrong about him attending a Hawks game and was owed an apology, Schmitt remained belligerent, saying, “I presented him with text messages about him wanting to meet with people that could have obviously been related to the prosecution that was coordinated with his office in Atlanta.”
There is no proof that Smith coordinated anything with Willis’ office. He testified Tuesday that he’d never met her, but Schmitt gave at least one interview after Tuesday’s hearing during which he accepted praise as having proved Smith a liar.
Hours before Tuesday’s hearing, Axios reported that Schmitt “has grown close to Vice President Vance and is seen as a top prospect to become a potential 2028 running mate.” Given that report, Schmitt likely saw Tuesday’s hearing as game time. He blew it.
But the public’s loss is bigger. We have a Senate where such games are considered acceptable — and even preferred over hearings and legislation that would help the American people.
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