Eric Schmitt damaged the Senate by chasing a basketball ghost
By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta ·
Senator Eric Schmitt tried to trap former special counsel Jack Smith in a perjury lie but confused two basketball teams, proving that theatrical oversight is a danger to institutional legitimacy.
Senator Eric Schmitt is wrong because he traded evidentiary rigor for a theatrical "gotcha." In doing so, he did not just fail to trap a witness. He degraded the legitimacy of the Senate Judiciary Committee. When a lawmaker uses a hearing to manufacture a crime, the process is no longer about oversight. It is about performance.
The anatomy of a botched trap
The hearing took place on September 29, 2026. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) attempted to impeach the testimony of former special counsel Jack Smith. To impeach a witness is to challenge their credibility. Smith served as special counsel until his resignation on January 10, 2025. Schmitt accused Smith of lying about his whereabouts in February 2024.
According to Politico, Schmitt alleged Smith traveled to Atlanta to watch the Hawks play the Golden State Warriors. He claimed this trip was a guise to conspire with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Schmitt presented a poster of text messages regarding seat numbers. He told Smith, "I will give you a second to process so you don't perjure yourself." Perjury is the willful act of swearing a false oath.
The record, as reported by PBS, tells a different story. Smith testified he did not go to an Atlanta Hawks game. He recalled attending a women's basketball game on February 3, 2024, in College Park. He went to watch Caitlin Clark play for the Iowa Hawkeyes against the Maryland Terrapins. Senator Amy Klobuchar noted that Schmitt had simply gotten the teams wrong.
The ghost of Joseph McCarthy
This failure follows the mechanism of the Army-McCarthy hearings. In those proceedings, a public hearing became a vehicle for a political actor to dismantle their own reputation through an aggressive but factually flawed interrogation of a witness. Schmitt attempted the same maneuver. He sought to transform a sports ticket into a federal crime.
When the facts collapsed, Schmitt did not retreat to the record. He called Smith a "dirtbag" and a "villain." This is the behavior of a prosecutor who has lost his evidence but refuses to lose his temper. Representative Jamie Raskin told thehill.com that Schmitt "basically disgraced himself." Raskin called the Senator an "obsequious sycophant."
Raskin's appetite for the adjective is well known. But the adjective is a distraction. The real failure is the process. When a Senator relies on a "ridiculous little stunt," he treats the Senate floor like a social media feed.
The price of the performance
Legitimacy is a capital stock that spends fast and refills slowly. Every time a committee member uses a flawed evidentiary basis to claim a witness is lying, that stock drops. The tool of impeachment becomes the instrument of self-destruction.
Schmitt defended himself on KTVI St. Louis by stating his job is to ask questions. That is a lawyer's excuse for a lack of preparation. A question without a factual basis is not oversight. Oversight is the review and monitoring of federal activities. It is a fishing expedition in a shallow pond. If a Senator may accuse a witness based on a guess, then there are no rules.
The Senate Judiciary Committee must now formalize stricter evidentiary standards for documentary exhibits. The current system allows members to introduce unverified screenshots for a viral moment. This creates an institutional vulnerability. Without formal authentication protocols, the committee remains a stage for errors. When the "gotcha" fails, the only person who looks like a villain is the one holding the poster.