<p>Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) stated he made no error when he attempted to place former special counsel Jack Smith in Atlanta during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, rejecting claims that he confused an NBA game with a college women's basketball game.</p>
<p>During the hearing on September 26, 2026, Schmitt presented Smith with “a series of text messages” indicating he was at a “Hawks” game on February 3, 2024. Schmitt implied this referred to an Atlanta Hawks NBA game and questioned whether Smith had traveled to Georgia to meet with then-Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.</p>
<p>Smith responded that the basketball game he remembered attending featured Caitlin Clark in Maryland, not an NBA game in Georgia. Schmitt appeared to have confused the Atlanta Hawks NBA team with the University of Iowa’s women’s basketball team, the Hawkeyes.</p>
<p>After the hearing, Schmitt was asked about the exchange by TMZ but dismissed the notion that he had made a mistake in his questioning. “There’s not a mistake,” Schmitt said. “I asked him if he was in Atlanta. The only NBA game going on, actually 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.”</p>
<p>When CNN inquired about the same exchange, Schmitt joked, “Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan?”</p>
<p>The Atlanta Hawks hosted the Golden State Warriors at 7:30 p.m. on February 3, while Iowa played the University of Maryland in College Park at 8 p.m. Smith indicated that Department of Justice records could verify his attendance at the Iowa-Maryland game.</p>
<p>Schmitt had warned Smith about the possibility of perjury when questioning him about the basketball game. He concluded his questioning by labeling Smith a “total dirtbag.”</p>
<p>This distinction became a point of contention during the hearing. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) accused Schmitt of using incorrect information to suggest that Smith had secretly traveled to Atlanta, asserting that Schmitt had mixed up the Hawks and Hawkeyes.</p>
<p>Klobuchar also addressed Schmitt’s error after the hearing. “He accused Jack Smith of perjury in the moment and said, ‘Don’t perjure yourself.’ And then he ended his questions by calling him a dirtbag,” Klobuchar remarked. “Those were his exact words. So my point was, don’t call someone a dirtbag when you don’t have your own facts right.”</p>
<p>The questioning was part of broader Republican scrutiny regarding whether Smith’s federal investigation was coordinated with Willis’s separate prosecution of President Donald Trump. Smith testified that he did not meet with Willis or Nathan Wade, the prosecutor leading the Georgia racketeering case against Trump.</p>