Klobuchar Exposes Schmitt’s Flawed Perjury Accusation Against Jack Smith at Judiciary Hearing

Sen. Eric Schmitt accused former Special Counsel Jack Smith of perjury during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, only to have the allegation dismantled minutes later by Sen. Amy Klobuchar after it emerged the Missouri Republican had confused an NBA franchise with a college basketball team.

The exchange occurred while Smith testified before the committee regarding his tenure leading two federal investigations into Donald Trump: one examining the retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and another probing efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Republicans on the panel have repeatedly characterized Smith’s work as politically motivated, setting the stage for contentious questioning.

Schmitt attempted to place Smith in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 2024, suggesting the special counsel attended an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks. The line of questioning was designed to imply improper coordination between Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was simultaneously pursuing state-level racketeering charges against Trump and several allies. Schmitt presented text messages from Smith’s security detail discussing seating arrangements on a poster board, briefly displayed it, and declared that Smith had already committed perjury by denying he was in Atlanta.

Smith, visibly confused by the premise of the question, asked what city the game would have been played in and stated he had no recollection of attending such an event.

When Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota and former prosecutor, took her turn to question Smith, she requested the poster board be brought back into view. She noted that standard evidentiary practice requires giving a witness adequate time to review introduced materials. Upon closer inspection of the text messages, Klobuchar pointed out that Atlanta was never mentioned in the communications.

She then identified the source of Schmitt’s error. The messages referenced a trip to Maryland to watch the University of Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball team, not the Atlanta Hawks. Smith confirmed he had attended the college game to watch star guard Caitlin Clark.

Iowa played the University of Maryland at the Xfinity Center in College Park, Md., on Feb. 3, 2024, a highly publicized matchup that drew national television coverage because of Clark’s record-breaking collegiate career. The Atlanta Hawks, meanwhile, played the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco that same evening. The geographic impossibility of Smith being in both locations underscored the flaw in Schmitt’s accusation.

“Perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully,” Klobuchar told Schmitt. “I think people should have their facts straight before they accuse people of being a ‘dirtbag,’ and not get the teams wrong.”

Schmitt, who served as Missouri’s attorney general before joining the Senate in 2023, used the remainder of his allotted time to condemn Smith for subpoenaing the phone records of Republican lawmakers during the election interference investigation. He called Smith a “total dirtbag” and accused him of weaponizing the Justice Department against political enemies.

The attempt to link Smith to Willis reflects a broader strategy among Trump allies to frame the various federal and state prosecutions as a coordinated effort. Willis secured a sweeping indictment against Trump and 18 co-defendants in August 2023 under Georgia’s RICO statute. However, Smith operated under the authority of the U.S. Department of Justice, while Willis is an independently elected county prosecutor. No evidence has emerged demonstrating operational collaboration between the two offices.

Smith was appointed special counsel by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022. Following Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, Smith moved to dismiss both federal cases, citing longstanding DOJ policy and Office of Legal Counsel opinions prohibiting the criminal prosecution of a sitting president. Smith subsequently resigned from the department before Trump took office in January 2025.

The Judiciary Committee hearings are part of ongoing Republican efforts to scrutinize the actions of officials involved in the investigations of the former president. Smith’s testimony marks one of his first major public appearances before Congress since leaving the special counsel’s office.

Klobuchar, whose father Jim Klobuchar was a prominent sportswriter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, frequently references her background in sports journalism and her prior experience as a county prosecutor during committee proceedings. Her intervention Tuesday prevented a formally inaccurate perjury accusation from remaining unchallenged in the hearing record.

The Senate Judiciary Committee continues to schedule oversight hearings related to the previous administration’s Justice Department operations.