Get you up to speed: Watch Live: Jack Smith testifies on Trump probes at Senate hearing
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., Senator Eric Schmitt questioned former Special Counsel Jack Smith about his alleged attendance at an NBA game in Atlanta on February 3, 2024. Smith denied attending the game, stating he was present at a women’s college basketball match in College Park, Maryland, while Schmitt displayed text messages suggesting otherwise.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis conducted an investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia but has not disclosed when the findings will be made public. A U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on this matter took place on September 29, 2026, during which Smith was asked about his whereabouts in early February 2024.
Sen. Eric Schmitt has indicated plans to provide follow-up information regarding the text messages he presented, which he claims contradict Jack Smith’s testimony about his whereabouts in February 2024. Sen. Amy Klobuchar has called for an apology from Schmitt, stating that his confusion over the name of a basketball team has led to unjust implications.
What remains unclear — It is uncertain whether the text messages displayed by Sen. Schmitt about Smith’s alleged attendance at the NBA game will be made public.
Jack Smith testifies at Senate hearing regarding Trump investigations
Smith was pressed by Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, about whether he attended a NBA game between the Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors in Atlanta in early February 2024.
Schmitt said Smith’s alleged attendance at the game would be significant because the game occurred around the time that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis revealed she had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, whom she hired as a special prosecutor to work on an investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
Smith said he did not attend that game, but may have flown through Atlanta on the way to Florida. Still, he told senators he “definitely did not go” to an Atlanta Hawks game.
The former special counsel also said he never met Wade or Willis while he was special counsel.
Schmitt then displayed a poster board with text messages from members of Smith’s team, including one asking if “109 Row 1” was reserved for Smith. Schmitt said the messages showed Smith was in Atlanta and attended the NBA game on Feb. 3, 2024.
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“I don’t think you know that we have this stuff, so I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t, you know, perjure yourself,” Schmitt told Smith.
But the poster board on display was quickly taken down by Schmitt’s staff and Smith asked to see it again.
Schmitt said he would put the information “in a follow-up.”
“I think you’ve already perjured yourself,” the senator said, calling Smith a “total dirtbag.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, continued to push for a copy of the text messages referenced by Schmitt and said Smith should be given the opportunity to see them.
When the poster with the texts was displayed again, Smith said he did attend a women’s college basketball game in early February 2024 between the University of Maryland Terrapins and the University of Iowa Hawkeyes to see Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark play.
That game took place in College Park, Maryland. Klobuchar suggested that Schmitt was mistaking the Hawkeyes for the Atlanta Hawks.
“For a U.S. senator to have false information and imply, based on a confusion about the name of a team, which I knew, knowing my Midwestern sports, and imply that you were in another city, that you were somehow involved that day in what was happening in Georgia, and then call you a dirtbag is something that deserves an apology,” Klobuchar said.