Texts Behind GOP Senator’s Failed ‘Gotcha’ Reportedly Didn’t Even Name a Basketball Team

Screenshot via C-SPAN

The text messages at the center of Sen. Eric Schmitt’s (R-MO) botched attempt to catch former special counsel Jack Smith in a lie did not actually name either of the basketball teams involved in the now-viral mix-up, according to a new report.

The Hill revealed Thursday that it reviewed messages exchanged by members of Smith’s team surrounding a Feb. 3, 2024 basketball game and found no references to either the Atlanta Hawks or Iowa Hawkeyes. Instead, the messages largely dealt with logistics inside the arena, including seat locations and plans for members of the group to meet up.

During Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Schmitt pressed Smith on whether he had attended an Atlanta Hawks NBA game that day, suggesting Smith may have been in Georgia to meet with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was separately prosecuting President Donald Trump.

“I definitely did not go to a Hawks game,” Smith said. “I’m sure of that.”

Schmitt responded confidently, “I think you’ve already perjured yourself.”

Smith later recalled that he had instead gone to the Iowa-Maryland women’s college basketball game to watch Caitlin Clark play, prompting Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) to determine that Schmitt had confused the Hawks with the Hawkeyes.

But the messages reviewed by The Hill now seem to show that Schmitt’s team may have been trying to place Smith in Atlanta based on the date, which came one day after Willis publicly acknowledged a romantic relationship with a prosecutor in her case against Trump.

The revelation follows a separate report from MS NOW that Republican Senate Judiciary Committee staff warned Schmitt’s team ahead of the hearing that the messages provided by the Justice Department were “unvetted” and that his staff would need to independently verify the information.

And The Hill even found Clark mentioned elsewhere in the batch of messages it reviewed. In a late-March exchange, several weeks after the game, prosecutor David Harbach wrote, “P.s. Caitlin Clark on tonight at 8pm on ESPN.”

Schmitt’s office, however, told the outlet that the senator had never received that message.

“Senator Schmitt has never seen texts referencing Caitlin Clark, hence why he asked what game Jack Smith was at,” a spokesperson said. “Had Schmitt received those text messages, of course he wouldn’t have asked which game he attended.”

MS NOW also reported, though, that even the seat number referenced in the text messages did not exist at the Atlanta Hawks’ State Farm Arena.

Schmitt maintained during Tuesday questioning by TMZ DC that he wasn’t embarrassed by the flub and that his questions were valid because Smith has “lied before.”

When told that video exists showing the former special counsel at a women’s college basketball game in Maryland on the night in question, the Republican senator hit back, “Great. Well, then he was at the Hawkeyes game. I just asked him if he was in Atlanta.”

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