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‘What happened in there?’ – GOP senator confronted over viral Jack Smith moment

September 30, 2026 | | Print Article

A GOP lawmaker’s attempt to nail former special counsel Jack Smith for perjury spectacularly backfired due to an inexplicable blunder that left Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) with egg dripping from his face.

The Biden regime’s lawfare henchman was grilled by Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, with an apparent “gotcha” moment for Schmitt blowing up when somehow his attendance at a basketball game got mixed up, and a reference to Hawks didn’t mean Atlanta’s NBA team but rather then-NCAA women’s basketball sensation Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes.

The exchange immediately went viral, exploding on social media and sucking attention away from the rogue prosecutor’s serious abuses of power, including obtaining the call logs of Republican senators during his witch hunt and sweeping up checks from thousands of Americans who donated to President Donald J. Trump.

Footage of Smith at the Feb. 3, 2024 Maryland-Iowa game was posted to social media, apparent proof that the “dirtbag” federal prosecutor wasn’t in Atlanta for a secret meeting with disgraced Fulton County DA Fani Willis as was suggested during the hearing.

After the hearing debacle, a reporter for celebrity gossip outlet TMZ caught up with the senator outside the Capitol to ask, “What happened in there?”

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During the brief conversation, Schmitt played it off, denying that his team screwed up with the botched “gotcha” moment.

“I gotta ask, man, what happened in there?” TMZ DC’s Charlie Cotton asked the “Show Me State” senator.

“About what?” Schmitt asked, with Cotton replying, “With getting it wrong.”

“Well, I don’t think about it that way. I asked him if he was at a basketball game that night. The only NBA game that was going on that night was in Atlanta. So, I asked him if he was there. He had already lied twice,” the senator said, according to a transcript of the exchange. “He lied about not seeing the contents, and he lied about, um, you know, not filing, not getting advice not to file the superseding indictment within 60 days of the election, so Jack Smith is not credible. Um, he gave his answer, and I guess that’s his answer.”

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Cotton shot back, “It just looked like you had a ‘gotcha’ for him, like, ‘You’re gonna perjure yourself,’ or ‘You’re lying now,’ and then you had the wrong…”

“Well, he was at a basketball game. I asked him if he was in Atlanta. He said, ‘No.’ He said he was at another game. That’s his answer, so it is what it is,” Schmitt responded.

“How did that mistake happen?” Cotton pressed.

“It’s not a mistake!” Schmitt insisted.  “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 tip-off was in Atlanta, so I asked him if he was in Atlanta that night…I asked him if he was at a Hawks game in Atlanta, because we’re trying to figure out how much coordination took place between him and the Atlanta prosecutor.”

“So, no heads are gonna roll over this sort of thing, like whoever gave you that information, their job isn’t in jeopardy?” Cotton pressed, asking if the staffer (s) who blew it would soon be out of a job.

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“Well, no, I asked him a question, like, were you in Atlanta? He answered no. He’s lied before, so I guess we’ll take him at his word that he wasn’t in Atlanta? I don’t know,” the senator said, denying that the viral moment was a cause of any embarrassment for him.

But while Schmitt may not be embarrassed, others have pasted a clown nose on his face, with Fox News’ Brit Hume opining that he has only himself to blame for the ridicule.

“He brought this on himself and deserves the obloquy,” Hume wrote in a post to X.

After the hearing, Schmitt took to X to post, “Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan?”

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Chris Donaldson
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