Klobuchar Schools Missouri Senator On Hawks-Hawkeyes Mix-Up At Jack Smith Hearing

WASHINGTON, DC — A Republican senator's bid to catch former special counsel Jack Smith lying under oath collapsed on live television this week when his key piece of evidence turned out to involve the wrong basketball team.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar was in the room to point it out.

"As a Gopher fan, I know the difference between the Hawks and the Hawkeyes," Klobuchar wrote on X following Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where Smith testified about his prosecutions of President Donald Trump.

Her target was Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican.

Schmitt asked Smith whether he attended a Golden State Warriors game against the Atlanta Hawks on Feb. 3, 2024.

He then asked what Smith would say if Schmitt had text messages from Smith's own team placing him at that game, one day after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and prosecutor Nathan Wade went public with their relationship. Willis brought the Georgia election case against Trump.

Schmitt's staff held up a poster board with photos of Willis and Wade, an image of Atlanta's State Farm Arena and texts among Smith's team saying seats had been "reserved for Jack."

But none of the texts actually mentioned Atlanta.

When Democrats objected that Smith hadn't been given a chance to read the texts, Schmitt told Smith, "I think you've already perjured yourself." He wrapped up his questioning by calling Smith a "villain" who would go down in history as "a total dirtbag."

Once Smith got a look at the evidence, he offered a far less sinister explanation. "I recall going to a University of Maryland basketball game where Caitlin Clark was playing right around that time," he said. "It was Maryland playing Iowa."

In other words, the Iowa Hawkeyes, not the Atlanta Hawks.

Klobuchar, smiling slightly, turned to Schmitt. "That might be the confusion over the names of the team," she said. "But perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully."

Watch the exchange here.

The claim had already spread online by then. Pro-Trump influencer Benny Johnson posted on X that Schmitt had caught Smith committing perjury, but the post appeared to be gone by late Tuesday afternoon.

Schmitt later went on "The Charlie Kirk Show" and said he was simply asking questions to see whether Smith would trip himself up, and he stood by calling Smith a "dirtbag."

For plenty of Minnesotans, the Hawks-Hawkeyes distinction is second nature. The Gophers and Hawkeyes are Big Ten border rivals who play for the Floyd of Rosedale trophy every football season.