Eric Schmitt was warned that evidence he intended to introduce in his perjury trap for Jack Smith had not been vetted; Schmitt used it anyway, and now he might pay a political price

Eric Schmitt's perjury gaffe draws press attention (ABC4 News)

The blowback keeps piling up for U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) after his attempt to set a perjury trap for former Special Counsel Jack Smith blew up spectacularly at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. The latest self-induced headache for Schmitt comes from a report that evidence he cited had not been vetted, and the senator knew that in advance. The latest comes from a jointly published piece at Daily Beast and Yahoo! News under the headline "MAGA senator hit with fresh humiliation after new bombshell." The report hinted that a Schmitt staffer might face fallout from the fiasco. William Vaillancourt writes:

The Republican senator who flubbed a gotcha moment while questioning former Special Counsel Jack Smith knew the evidence he cited had not been vetted, a new report claims.

Eric Schmitt was warned in advance that the series of text messages he proudly displayed at Tuesday's hearing were not properly vetted, a source familiar with the matter tells MS NOW.

As former attorney general of Missouri, Schmitt should know how to build a case, especially one he hoped would result in a perjury charge against Smith. So why did Schmitt haul off at the hearing with the legal equivalent of toilet paper stuck to his shoe? I can only think of 2-3 answers to that question. One is that Schmitt simply might not be too smart. Two is that Schmitt has become such an ardent Trumper that it clouded his judgment and caused him to become reckless. Three is that Schmitt desperately wants to gain a position in the Trump administration and was willing to do most anything to impress his would-be boss. Considering that Trump's poll numbers are flat lining, and the economy is cratering, it's hard to see why anyone would want to join the Trump White House. Has the Senate become that bad a gig?

Law students usually take a trial advocacy course in their second or third year of law school, and I suspect the primary lesson goes something like this: "Success in the courtroom depends on sound and thorough preparation." Eric Schmitt must have skipped class that day. Villaincourt writes:

Schmitt tried to corner Smith by asking whether he attended an Atlanta Hawks basketball game, a roundabout way of suggesting he was colluding with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was investigating President Donald Trump's election interference in Georgia.

Smith, Schmitt claimed, committed perjury when he said he did not go to a Hawks game in February 2024. Smith answered that he had actually been at an Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball game instead—creating a viral moment that continues to embarrass Schmitt.

The Daily Beast/Yahoo! report provides background on how Schmitt came to wander into a proverbial cowpile:

The mishap originated when the Justice Department shared the texts with GOP staff on the Judiciary Committee, according to MS NOW. Chairman Chuck Grassley's staff omitted the texts from a memo about information to be used in the hearing. Grassley did not share the messages with his Democratic colleagues, either.

Schmitt's staff, the report claims, searched for information that might show a connection between Willis' investigation and Smith's. They were then given the texts, but with a warning that they had not been vetted. Schmitt's staff was reportedly told they would need to complete the necessary vetting.

They apparently did not.

A fact-check would have revealed that the seat number mentioned in the texts sent between Smith's staff does not exist in the Hawks' home arena. Smith also appears in the crowd in videos of the Hawkeyes game in Maryland. 

Before his error, Schmitt was floated as a potential running mate for JD Vance in 2028, and was described as "trustworthy, intelligent, articulate and a deft political operator." After the error, Schmitt seems to be none of those things.

As for the aforementioned Schmitt staffer, he also seems to have cow poopy on his shoe. Villaincourt writes:

The MAGA senator's disastrous line of questioning may also reap consequences for a member of his staff.

Prior to Tuesday, the staffer on Schmitt's team who held up the giant poster of the texts, Ethan Harper, was on track to leave his role as general counsel and join the White House in the Staff Secretary's office. However, the episode has added some doubt to that transition, Politico reports. The extent of Harper's behind-the-scenes involvement wasn't immediately clear.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Eric Schmitt's hometown newspaper, has such 'respect' for him that it seemed to take special delight in carving him a new anal cavity for concocting a perjury trap that went awry

(Facebook)

My news feed, as I write this, is filled with so many splendid beatdowns of U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) that it's impossible to pick a favorite. Schmitt, the junior senator from the Show-Me State, is the lawmaker who intended to set a perjury trap for former special counsel Jack Smith at Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and wound up becoming the punchline for a seemingly endless stream of online jokes. 

As of today, I'm embarrassed to say that I grew up in Missouri, a state not only represented by Eric Schmitt in the U.S. Senate but also by the execrable Josh Hawley (who has made so many wacky statements that Mother Jones' David Corn devoted an entire article to them.) In my lifetime, Missouri has produced an abundance of admirable politicians, from both parties. They include Democrats Thomas Eagleton, Warren Hearnes, Claire McCaskill, Richard Gephardt, Stuart Symington, and Mel Carnahan. They also should include Jerry Litton, who after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives was running for the U.S. Senate when he and his family died in a plane crash in 1976 on the night of his victory in the Democratic primary. I was 19 years old at the time, and I remember having an empty feeling upon hearing of Litton's death the next morning. In an effort to make money for college, I worked that summer in a nearby rubber factory that made V-belts for vehicles, appliances, record players and the like. I saw a lot of military belts come down the line, so I assumed they must have been used in tanks, armored vehicles, maybe weapons. All of this comes to mind because I have a vague memory of Jerry Litton visiting our plant that summer. I don't think I saw him, but I do seem to recall co-workers talking about his visit. I would go on to cast my first presidential ballot, for Jimmy Carter, that November, and I remember political pundits viewing Jerry Litton as a possible president someday. That made me wonder how Litton's political career might have turned out -- and if I might have wound up voting for him. 

On the GOP side, probably the three best-known names at that time were John Danforth, Christopher "Kit" Bond, and Gene Taylor. Eric Schmitt and Josh Hawley have combined to convince me that the days of honorable Republicans from Missouri are over -- maybe forever.

Schmitt is so "revered" in Missouri that his hometown newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, seemed to take special delight in ripping him a new one for his ham-handed antics in the Jack Smith hearing. I enjoyed the P-D's editorial so much that I'm going to highlight some of my favorite lines in yellow. I hope you will get a highlighter of your favorite color and follow along with me. If you have come to loath Eric Schmitt, you will love the piece from the Post-Dispatch's editorial board. It will make you think, it will make you laugh, and it might even make you let out a hearty "Amen, Brother!" along the way. Let's give it a look, under the headline "Editorial: Schmitt airballs with 'dirtbag' attack":

Just when you think Eric Schmitt couldn’t possibly embarrass himself and his constituents any more than he already has, he goes in for a rhetorical layup, gratuitously throws an elbow, spectacularly misses the shot and then stomps around the court indignantly when the ref calls foul.

That’s all metaphorical, of course. What Missouri’s perpetually seething junior senator really, truly did on Tuesday (in front of the whole country!) was to proffer a loony right-wing conspiracy based on some misunderstood text messages; falsely accuse a prosecutor of perjury; call him a "villain" and a “total dirtbag” — and then stand by that playground-level pejorative even after the whole thing turned out to be a lazy mistake on the part of Schmitt and his staff regarding, of all things, a basketball game.

This is the man representing 6 million Missourians in the “world’s greatest deliberative body.” Sheesh.

What felt like an especially cringey episode of the HBO political comedy “Veep” began when Schmitt went after former special counsel Jack Smith during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. In the upside-down moral universe that Schmitt and his fellow MAGA apostles occupy, the worst offense against constitutional democracy in our lifetimes wasn’t President Donald Trump’s damnable attempt to overturn the 2020 election; it was Smith’s admirable attempt to hold him accountable for it with criminal charges.

That and other legitimate criminal cases against Trump evaporated when he was reelected president in 2024. Trump’s congressional lickspittles (none more lickspittle-y than Schmitt) have been trying ever since to prosecute the prosecutor.

It was in pursuit of that twisted goal that Schmitt asked Smith whether he had attended a February 2024 NBA game in Atlanta between the Atlanta Hawks and the Golden State Warriors. Smith — whose face conveyed that he was confused about the relevance of the question — said he was certain he hadn’t attended that game.

That’s when Schmitt sprung what he clearly imagined was his brilliant trap. A staffer briefly held up a poster board showing some text messages that, Schmitt declared, proved “you were in Atlanta, at a Warriors-Hawks game on Feb. 3, 2024.”

Why is that relevant? Because that was the day after Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis publicly admitted an affair with her special prosecutor, thus endangering her own criminal proceedings against Trump. In Schmitt’s telling, this supposed evidence of Smith being in Atlanta proved the two anti-Trump prosecutors were improperly colluding on damage control from Willis’ admitted affair for the sake of their joint obsession with nailing Trump.

"I don't think you know we have this stuff,” said Schmitt, referring to the text messages in a tone that can only be described as glowering, “so I'll give you a second to process it so you don't perjure yourself.”

He subsequently added, “I think you’ve already perjured yourself,” and declared Smith “a villain” and “a total dirtbag.”

Got all that? 

Good. So here’s the thing: None of it happened.

Smith did remember being at, not an NBA game in Atlanta, but a college women's basketball game in Maryland around that time — Maryland Terrapins vs. Iowa Hawkeyes. It was Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who finally put it all together. Schmitt and his staff’s “ah-ha!” moment came down to them discovering Smith had been at a basketball game that night but misconstruing which game it was.

Wrong teams, wrong league, wrong state. It was based entirely on that sloppy staffing that Schmitt furiously accused Smith of perjury. 

You can tell a lot about a person based on how he reacts to making an embarrassing gaffe that, in this case, literally involved public, false criminal allegations. Is he apologetic? Regretful? Gracious? Even a little classy? Or does he lash out, his voice rising in anger, at the person he wronged?

As Klobuchar chided Schmitt for his recklessness and his “dirtbag” comment, Missouri’s junior senator growled: “I stand by that statement.”

And we’ll just leave it to readers to decide whose behavior in this story qualifies for the label “dirtbag” — let alone "villain."

U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt's attempt to pull a 'got'cha' on Jack Smith blows up spectacularly, turning the senator into an internet punching bag and making Smith's claims against Donald Trump look airtight

(ABC News)

Jack Smith has appeared before Congress so many times that it has become almost impossible to trip him up. U..S. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), an ardent believer in Donald Trump's desire to see Smith punished for  having the president indicted twice, learned that lessen the hard way yesterday at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A mix-up about two basketball games, of all things, blew up in Schmitt's face, turning him into the butt of jokes across the web. Some observers even suggested the fiasco might cause the possibility of Schmitt becoming J.D. Vance's 2028 running mate to disappear into the ether. The hearing presented journalists with all kinds of sidebars and camera angles, and in a jointly published article at CNN and Yahoo! News, Aaron Blake sorts through them under the headline "An embarrassing moment for the GOP, a confident witness, and other takeaways from Jack Smith's hearing." Blake writes:

Special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two indictments against now-President Donald Trump in 2023, testified in front of Congress again on Tuesday — this time, to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Smith's testimony comes as Republicans continue to probe the investigations into Trump and as some in the party, including the president, have pushed for often-unspecified criminal charges to be brought against Smith.

Here are the major takeaways from Tuesday's hearing.

An embarrassing episode epitomizes the GOP's failures to pin down Smith

Republicans have struggled mightily to substantiate Trump's desire for Smith to be charged criminally (maybe that's because they have no case against Smith, under the law). But rarely has it seemed to backfire like it did Tuesday. 

Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri crafted an apparent conspiracy theory about Smith being tied to the prosecution of Trump in Fulton County, Georgia. To substantiate his theory, Schmitt cited text messages he suggested showed Smith had been at an Atlanta Hawks game on February 3, 2024 – the day after Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade admitted to an affair.

Smith appeared dumbfounded, though. He denied going to a Hawks game and said he had no recollection of even being in Atlanta.

"What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warriors-Hawks game on February 3, 2024 – the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair?" Schmitt said.

Schmitt went big on the allegation, telling Smith, "I don't think you know that we have this stuff." He urged Smith not to "perjure yourself." He called Smith a "dirtbag." He later told the "Charlie Kirk Show" that he was just asking questions and seeing whether Smith would ensnare himself.

Committee Democrats helped produce evidence that gave Smith some idea of what Schmitt was trying to get at -- and that allowed Smith to let the air out of Schmitt's "got'cha" balloon, Blake reports:

Eventually, Democrats got Schmitt to allow Smith to actually review the evidence – a poster featuring the texts in question. In one of them, a fellow prosecutor asks about a seat being reserved for Smith. The poster showed the Atlanta Hawks' arena.

But by this point, Smith seemed to put it together. He said he was not at a game featuring the Atlanta Hawks, but rather the University of Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball team – which then featured Caitlin Clark – at the University of Maryland in the Washington, DC, area.

Smith's recollection matches up with a game played that day. 

It turns out that Schmitt and his staff did a poor job of research in preparation for the hearing. Blake writes. That provides evidence that any case the GOP might try to concoct against Smith is likely to be built from extremely thin gruel. It makes you wonder how Schmitt ever managed to become attorney general of Missouri, not to mention a U.S. senator. Both positions appear to require a keen intellect that Schmitt does not seem to possess. Blake writes:

Behind the scenes, a source familiar with how Schmitt got it wrong told CNN the Republican senator checked what men's college and NBA games were scheduled that day and found only the Atlanta Hawks set to play — but he failed to consider that Smith may have been at a women's basketball game.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, after clearing up the matter, said Schmitt should apologize.

Instead, he laughed it off, telling CNN later Tuesday: "Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlan Clark fan?"

The Republican defended his pointed line of questioning, saying, "That's what these hearings are for. You ask questions, you get answers. You know, Jack Smith has perjured himself before, but if he says he's at the game, maybe he's a Caitlin Clark fan. We'll accept that."

At the hearing, he maintained that the texts "could have obviously been related to the prosecution" in Fulton County. He said he stood by calling Smith a "dirtbag."

The scene epitomized how speculative and thinly constructed the GOP's allegations about Smith, Trump's foes and about the justice system being weaponized against Trump have been. Likewise, the GOP's other major perjury allegation against Smith rests on a complete misreading of the evidence.

But rarely has this apparent fishing expedition been laid so bare. Schmitt seemed to firmly believe he had nailed Smith on something. But just minutes later, it fell apart – and rather spectacularly so. 

Smith has often seemed detached when jousting with members of Congress. But Blake notes that he has taken on a more human and approachable persona in such situations, and that might help swing public opinion to his side:

Smith was more animated than at an earlier hearing

Smith is a very careful witness. He often pauses noticeably before answering a question — in a way that can be a little jarring.

But he's also made clear that he wants to fight back against the Trump administration's weaponization of the justice system against people like him. And on Tuesday, he was a little more animated and open.

He punctuated his opening statement by saying, "Fear may be contagious; courage is as well."

He also called it an "outrage" that people he worked with were "targeted illegally, lost their jobs illegally, and had their lives turned upside down by this Department of Justice."

When asked about the Supreme Court's 2024 ruling conferring presidents with a large degree of immunity, Smith said it "can be very dangerous to the rule of law" for powerful people to benefit from such exceptions.

Samuel Alito, with his investment portfolio under intense scrutiny, recuses himself from major climate-change case that could impact the fossil fuel industry

(WMUR-TV, Facebook)

In yesterday's post we outlined signs that the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is a "dysfunctional mess" -- and that is a kind descriptive; a better, and more blunt, term is "corrupt." How did we reach this conclusion? It grew from our analysis of a ruling the high court issued last Friday in a case styled Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters.

What did SCOTUS do to draw our ire? It granted authority over U.S. midterms to president Donald Trump that the law does not allow. Does this raise the specter of Trump trying to rig midterms? The answer is yes, it already has. The Democracy Docket website, headed by Democratic Party election lawyer Marc Elias, wrote an article earlier this month under the headline "Here is Trump's blueprint to rig the 2026 midterms. How's that for subtlety?

Today, we have more news that suggests the nation's highest court, with all of its pomp and circumstance, is a morass, a cesspool, a quagmire, a . . . well, you get the idea. The news comes to us via a jointly published article at Forbes and Yahoo! News under the headline "Samuel Alito recuses from major Supreme Court case after Fossil Fuel Investments come under fire." Alison Durkee writes: 

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito will not hear an upcoming environmental case, the court told lawyers Monday, unexpectedly making the move following pressure to recuse from the case over concerns he could use it to boost his own investments in the oil and gas industry. 

The Supreme Court's clerk wrote to lawyers in the case, Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, on Monday, informing them that Alito "has determined that he will not continue to participate in this case."

The case, for which the court will hear oral arguments on Oct. 5, concerns questions over whether lawsuits can be brought in state court that seek to hold fossil fuel companies liable for the impacts of climate change.  

Watchdog and left-leaning groups have been urging Alito to recuse himself in the case, pointing to the justice's significant investments in oil, gas, and energy companies that would benefit from a Supreme Court ruling making it harder for such companies to be held liable.

Has Alito done anything wrong in the Suncor case? Has he violated ethics rules, engaged in possible criminal conduct? Based on information we have so far, the answer is no. But that does not mean Alito, who answers to the title "Your Honor," has acted honorably. He did not reach the decision to recuse on his own; it came only after advocacy groups put pressure on him. And as Durkee notes, his initial reaction was to dilly-dally around the edges of the standard for recusal that applies to all federal judges:

Alito had so far refused to recuse himself from the case because he doesn't hold investments in the two companies directly involved in the lawsuit, Suncorp Energy and Exxon Mobil, with a spokesperson for the court previously telling NBC News that Alito "does not have a financial interest in any party" involved in the case and was advised by legal counsel that "his recusal is not required."

That, however, is not the standard -- as Alito surely knows. The issue is covered under 28 U.S. Code 455, which holds "Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

Alito might not have a financial interest in the parties involved, but that is not the issue here. He has been investing long enough and his returns have been lucrative enough to give him the portfolio of a serious investor. Forbes values Alito's net worth at approximately $10 million, making him the second-richest justice on the court behind Chief Justice John Roberts A report at Mother Jones gives an idea of the oil and gas-related wealth Alito has accumulated:

Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito gained up to $2.9 million from his fossil fuel interests between 2005 and 2024, a new review of financial disclosures shows.

The analysis from the nonprofit advocacy group and judicial watchdog Court Accountability, shared exclusively with the Guardian, found that even at the lowest range of estimates, Alito gained almost $400,000 from his oil and gas interests since being tapped for the high court by George W. Bush in 2005 and joining the court in 2006.

In short, Alito's financial interest goes to the entire fossil-fuel industry, not just any two parties to a case. That's why he should have known, in the interests of justice, his recusal was required. Durkee provides more insight into Alito's financial interests as they relate to fossil-fuel companies:

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Suncorp Energy on Oct. 5. It's unclear when the court could issue its final ruling, but it will likely be in a few months, and will come out before the court's term ends in late June 2027. The court's ruling will not directly hold Suncorp and Exxon liable for any impact on climate change, but will rather more broadly determine whether such lawsuits can be brought in state court to begin with.

The big number here is $175,000. That's roughly how much Alito has in investments in the fossil-fuel industry, with financial disclosures showing he has  between $175,00 and $575,000 in returns. The justice holds investments in ConocoPhillips, Woodside Energy Group, and AES Corp that were each valued at up to $15,000, his disclosures covering his 2025 finances show, and investments in Phillips 66, OGE Energy Corp, Black Hills Corp, BHP Group, and Fortis Inc that were each valued between $15,001 and $50,000. Alito and his wife also own a mineral interest in land in Grady County, Oklahoma, valued between $100,001 and $250,000, according to his disclosures. The Alitos reportedly receive a percentage of oil and gas sales made off of fossil fuels that are extracted on their land. Alito has long held interests in fossil fuel companies, including at one point holding Exxon stock, and an analysis of his financial disclosures by judicial watchdog group Court Accountability found the justice has made up to $2.9 million off his fossil fuel investments between 2005 and 2024 alone.

All of this raises an important question: Is it OK for Supreme Court justices to own stocks? The answer is yes, Durkee reports:

There is no prohibition on Supreme Court justices owning individual stocks, though financial disclosures suggest Alito and Roberts are the only ones that do. Ethics guidelines direct justices to recuse from any cases in which they have a financial interest, but there have been a number of instances in which justices have—often inadvertently—failed to properly recuse. Justices do not face any clear penalties for not recusing, as unlike lower-court judges, Supreme Court justices are encouraged to follow ethical guidelines but do not face any consequences if they refuse. This is not the first time Alito's stock holdings have raised scrutiny, as the justice has also faced controversies like a disclosure showing he sold shares of Anheuser-Busch in Aug. 2023. That was around the time the company came under fire for partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, Law Dork first noted, raising questions over whether the justice participated in a right-wing boycott against Bud Light.

It probably has not helped Alito's cause that he has been involved in a number of ethics-related dustups in recent years. It seems safe to say that advocacy groups on the left are not fond of Alito's conservative views and put a close watch on his activities. From the Forbes/Yahoo! article:

Alito's decision to recuse comes as the conservative-leaning justice has faced increasing scrutiny in recent years over potential ethics issues. Alito came under fire following reports in 2024 on him and his wife flying flags outside their home associated with the "Stop the Steal" movement, for instance, and The New York Times reported in 2022 that a conservative activist knew the ruling in 2014's Burwell v. Hobby Lobby before it came out after dining with the Alitos, raising speculation over whether the justice had leaked the ruling. Alito has denied any wrongdoing and has railed against the ethics criticism he's received, including by penning a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "ProPublica Misleads Its Readers" in 2023 before the outlet reported he took a luxury fishing trip with billionaire Paul Singer without disclosing it. The Supreme Court has faced a series of broader ethics concerns in recent years that have sparked a push by Democrats to impose a binding code of ethics on the court. Republicans have broadly opposed Democrats' efforts in Congress, however, and the court has declined to impose its own ethical code.

The Alito contretemps is not the only recent example of financial chicanery tied to a Supreme Court justice. We will report on another one in an upcoming post, and it makes you wonder if anyone on the court -- aside from the three liberals -- acts with any integrity.