Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt’s humiliating basketball blunder just got even more embarrassing.
The MAGA senator questioned former Special Counsel Jack Smith in a fiery Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, where he displayed text messages designed to catch Smith out. They revolved around claims that Smith attended an Atlanta Hawks basketball game in Georgia on Feb. 3, 2024.
Schmitt was attempting to suggest Smith was colluding with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was investigating President Donald Trump’s election interference in Georgia at the time. Snippets of the text messages were even displayed on large posters during the hearing.
The Republican claimed Smith committed perjury by saying he wasn’t at a Hawks game in Georgia that day. But Smith was in Maryland attending an Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball game, where star player Caitlin Clark was playing. Video posted online shows Smith in the audience, roughly 550 miles from Atlanta.
However, text messages obtained by The Hill show that the messages Schmitt relied on for his gotcha questions did not mention the Hawks, the Hawkeyes, Atlanta, or even a specific team.
Instead, Schmitt’s team appears to have zeroed in on the date—Feb. 3, 2024—to determine what game Smith might have been attending. But rather than consider the full range of basketball games being played that night, the team searched NBA and men’s college basketball schedules—and apparently never considered women’s college basketball. That left the University of Maryland-Iowa game, where Smith actually was, out of the search entirely.
Schmitt previously told Politico that the timing of the messages matched the Hawks’ tipoff, noting that “the only game at 7:30 tip-off in the NBA was in Atlanta.”
Messages sent on the day of the game seem to document Smith’s team attempting to find their seats—and sharing seat numbers to work out how to potentially link up after realizing they were seated in different areas.
“We are in 201. High; but center court. I will swing down at half to say hello,” JP Cooney, Smith’s then-deputy, wrote in one text message in response to a question about whether a seat in Row 109 was reserved for Smith, which was one of the exchanges printed out on a poster.
The release of the text messages follows a source telling MS NOW on Wednesday that Schmitt had been warned his staff had not properly vetted the communications.
A basic Google search would have revealed that the seat assignment cited in texts from Smith’s staff doesn’t exist at State Farm Arena, the Hawks’ home stadium.
Texts reviewed by The Hill were sent by Smith’s staff between July 2023 and May 2024. While no basketball teams were mentioned by name, in late March 2024, weeks after the Hawkeyes game Smith attended, prosecutor David Harbach wrote “P.s. Caitlin Clark on tonight at 8pm on ESPN.”
Schmitt’s staff allege the senator did not receive the texts that reference Clark by name.
“Senator Schmitt has never seen texts referencing Caitlin Clark, hence why he asked what game Jack Smith was at. Had Schmitt received those text messages, of course he wouldn’t have asked which game he attended. As the Senator has since said, he learned the one thing he and Jack Smith have in common is they are a fan of college sports,” a spokesperson for the senator told the Hill.
The Daily Beast has contacted Schmitt’s reps for further comment.
The latest revelations follow news that Ethan Harper, Schmitt’s general counsel, has reportedly lost a job promotion because of the humiliating episode.
Harper, who held up posters displaying the text messages at the Senate Judiciary Committee, was expected to leave his role with Schmitt on Friday for a new position in the White House Staff Secretary’s office next week, sources told Politico’s West Wing Playbook.
Though there is no evidence Harper was responsible for his boss’s gotcha-gone-wrong, three people familiar with his planned move told Politico that the White House position was now in doubt.
