Former special counsel Jack Smith appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend his two criminal probes into President Donald Trump.
Page A3From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 30 September 2026
Schmitt sets a trap for Jack Smith, then can't remember which basketball teams played
As it ran on the front
Sen. Eric Schmitt walked into the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday carrying a predicate from the House side. The Daily Caller ran the word "lawless" over the story. That was the frame Schmitt brought to the hearing room.
Then he opened his mouth. Schmitt asked Smith whether he had attended a February 2024 NBA game in Atlanta between the Hawks and the Golden State Warriors. It became clear on the record, quickly, that Schmitt or his staff had gotten the matchup wrong — the kind of detail a gotcha question needs to survive contact with the witness. The senator was trying to place Smith at a specific game to tie him to a wider conspiracy; instead the predicate came apart before the follow-up.…
…(cont) Rep. Jamie Raskin did not let it pass. "He's basically disgraced himself," Raskin said Tuesday of Schmitt's performance. Schmitt, asked to account for the mix-up, did not walk it back. "My job is to ask questions," he said — true, and also not an answer, since the job includes getting the predicate right before you ask it on the record.
Smith did not need many words to answer for himself. Asked to defend the two criminal investigations into President Trump — the same investigations the House report calls a lawless spying operation — the former special counsel told the Senate Judiciary Committee: "I stand by" the decisions. No scoreboard, no city, no team name required.
The report still stands as filed. The game Schmitt described did not go the way he said it did.
“This is the trick: bury a real accusation — spying on Republicans, a 57-page report, subpoena power behind it — inside a question so sloppy it can't survive five minutes with the witness, then call the sloppiness "just doing my job." Jack Smith didn't need a scoreboard, he needed three words. The report everybody claims matters just sits there unexamined because the hearing turned into a box-score correction instead.”
“Look, the senator asked a fair question about game attendance — everybody flubs a box score, that doesn't touch the underlying report, I mean the Hawks did play somebody that week, probably — okay that's not the point, the point is Arctic Frost is real, the point is due diligence, the point is— wait, did I just spend thirty seconds defending a stat sheet instead of the Constitution? That doesn't sound like me.”
Earlier in this story
- Schmitt sets a trap for Jack Smith, then can't remember which basketball teams played. By Chip · the breakfast edition, 30 September 2026
The receipts
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Tuesday blasted Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) after he and his staff appeared to confuse one basketball team for another when questioning former special counsel Jack Smith about his attendance at a game.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) is facing accusations he tried to launch a conspiracy tying former special counsel Jack Smith to others who prosecuted President Trump — a line of questioning that unwound when the senator apparently confused two basketball teams. Schmitt seemed poised for a gotcha moment with Smith when he asked him if he...
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) on Tuesday reflected on his mix-up during former special counsel Jack Smith's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying his job "is to ask questions." Schmitt asked Smith if he attended a February 2024 NBA game in Atlanta between the Hawks and the Golden State Warriors. It quickly became clear that...
· Jack Smith’s election interference wasn’t an accident. It was the strategy from the morgue, 25 Sep 2026
· Jack Smith Violated Constitution To Spy On Republicans In Lawless ‘Arctic Frost’ Investigation, Committee Alleges from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.