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Former Special Counsel Jack Smith spent four hours testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday about his investigations into President Trump’s election interference and theft of national security information.
Republicans mostly used their time to shout at the witness while affecting to clutch their pearls over his supposed attack on the rule of law. Sen. Darline Graham crying “Shame!” over her dead brother with all the affect of a Southern-fried catfish was a highlight.
But the purpose of this exercise was more than mugging for the cameras. Senate Republicans hoped to discredit Smith’s prosecutions of Trump and foster a narrative that he weaponized the Justice Department at the behest of the Biden White House. And they hoped to catch him out in some way that could be fashioned into the perjury indictment Trump has publicly demanded over and over and over.
These two objectives stand in ironic tension, particularly with Attorney General Todd Blanche leading an unabashed campaign of retribution against Trump’s enemies and publicly insisting that the president has every right to direct DOJ investigations. And Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt’s embarrassing f*ckup didn’t help the cause either.
Third verse, dumb as the first
The template here isn’t new.
In 2018, Republicans seized on texts between FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page as proof that the entire Mueller investigation was a plot to take out Trump. There was no evidence that they’d done anything inappropriate, other than use their work devices to conduct an extramarital affair. And indeed the Justice Department's inspector general concluded that the investigation was properly predicated, while two separate prosecutors handpicked by Bill Barr to find wrongdoing came up essentially empty.
Nevertheless, Rep. Louie Gohmert sneered during a hearing that Strzok was obviously lying, since he was such a skilled prevaricator the he “could probably pass a polygraph.”
Compare to Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy scoffing yesterday at Smith’s claim that no one from the Biden White House instructed him to go after Trump:
Republicans have produced exactly zero evidence that Biden interfered in Smith’s investigation. The best they can come up with is that Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith just three days after Trump’s 2022 announcement that he planned to run in 2024.
Here’s Sen. John Cornyn who (unlike Gohmert) is not an actual idiot and (unlike Kennedy) doesn’t usually play one on TV, calling it yesterday “the original sin of this ill-conceived prosecution.”
In reality, 28 CFR § 600.1 requires the appointment of an outside prosecutor when the AG determines that an ongoing investigation “would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances” — an eventuality triggered by the target declaring his intent to challenge the sitting president.
Perjury trap
The plan to get Smith charged with perjury for lying to Congress is also a rerun of old GOP seasons.
In 2025, Trump's former personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan — an insurance litigator with zero prosecutorial experience whom he installed as US Attorney in Virginia — charged former FBI Director James Comey with lying to Congress during an exchange with Sen. Ted Cruz. (See below.)
As Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes and Anna Bower pointed out, “I stand by my testimony” cannot possibly be a lie, even if that prior testimony was false, particularly when Cruz’s question was a confusing garble of accusations and innuendo. That’s why the experienced prosecutors Trump pushed out refused to charge it in the first place.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan ran this exact play in July when he referred Smith to the DOJ for making "willfully and intentionally false statements" during closed-door testimony. Smith told the committee he never sought a search warrant for the content of legislators’ text messages — which was true! But some of those text messages with White House staff were preserved by the National Archives and turned over to Smith, so Jordan then demanded that he be prosecuted for having given “the impression that neither Mr. Smith nor his team had access to the content of Members' privileged text messages."
Thus far, Todd Blanche hasn’t taken the bait. But since he was willing to indict Comey over a picture of seashells, it’s a fair bet that he’s cooking up something.
Meanwhile, Sen. Schmitt spent yesterday’s hearing showing that he’s even less competent than Jim Jordan!
“Hawks”
It started so well for Schmitt. He even managed to coordinate his big moment with an Axios beat sweetener by Jim VandeHei calling him “a tough-on-crime state attorney general,” seen as “trustworthy, intelligent, articulate and a deft political operator” who “has grown close to Vice President Vance and is seen as a top prospect to become a potential 2028 running mate.”
Schmitt cast Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and former special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whose secret affair torpedoed the Georgia case against Trump and his co-conspirators, in the Strzok-Page role.
“Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks on February 3, 2024?” he said, as staffers briefly hoisted a poster bearing Willis and Wade’s faces next to text messages from Smith’s staffers.
Smith looked genuinely puzzled.
“What would you say if I showed you the series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warriors–Hawks game on February 3, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair?” Schmitt thundered in self-righteous indignation. “I don't think you know that we have this stuff, so I will give you a second to process it so you don't perjure yourself.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who had clearly clocked Schmitt’s catastrophic blunder, broke in to insist that Smith be allowed to look at the texts in question.
“I'm a former prosecutor too, and I've never seen anyone just say ‘what do you think of this’ and put it down. We need a copy of the actual texts,” she said, barely able to contain her glee.
“I recall going to a University of Maryland basketball game. Caitlin Clark was playing, right around the time, and the Marshals Service was there with me,” Smith said, just about managing to hold his poker face. “You can check if that was the exact date. It was Maryland playing Iowa, I think, in February of 2024.”
Schmitt (or whichever staffer is currently packing his belongings and trying to find someone to take over his lease) had clearly confused the Atlanta Hawks NBA team and the University of Iowa Hawkeyes NCAA team.
“He was at an Iowa game. Is that correct?” Klobuchar asked.
“It was because Caitlin Clark was coming to Maryland to play,” Smith agreed.
Schmitt was momentarily thrown off his game.
“I’m glad you’re trying to rehabilitate the witness, but it’s not your time,” he spluttered, furious over the implosion of his big, made-for-TV gotcha. “I presented him with text messages about him wanting to meet with people that could obviously have been related to the prosecution that was coordinated with his office in Atlanta!“
Schmitt did not explain how attending a basketball game in Atlanta would be evidence of Smith cahootsing with DA Willis. But the GOP playbook relies on an absolute lack of shame, and so Schmitt dutifully bellied up to the microphone to celebrate his flawless victory with the chuds keeping the grift alive in Charlie Kirk’s old studio.
Schmitt says he stands by his claim that Smith is a “dirtbag” and a perjurer. And with that kind of commitment to the bit, he’s definitely a shoe-in for the VP spot.
That’s it for today
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Thanks for reading.
I don't know much about sportsball, but today I know a bit more.
Oh, and I knew nothing about Sen. Schmitt, but today I know enough to laugh at him.
As a citizen of Missouri, I can only say how sorry we are that we sent this big pile of Schmitt to DC.