Smith was pressed by Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, about whether he attended an NBA game between the Atlanta Hawks and the 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 Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis revealed she was in 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 elections in Georgia. Smith said he did not attend that game, but may have flown through Atlanta on his way to Florida. Still, he told senators he “definitely didn’t go” to an Atlanta Hawks game. The former special prosecutor also said he never met Wade or Willis while he was special prosecutor. Schmitt then showed 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. The poster showing the text messages. SAUL LOEB /AFP via Getty Images “I don’t think you know we have this stuff, so I’m going to give you a second to process it so you don’t commit perjury,” Schmitt told Smith. But Schmitt’s staff quickly removed the exposed sign and Smith asked to see it again. Schmitt said he would put the information “into a follow-up.” “I think you’ve already committed perjury,” the senator said. calling Smith a “total idiot.” Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, continued to push for a copy of the text messages Schmitt referenced and said Smith should be given the opportunity to see them. When the sign with the texts was shown again, Smith said she attended a women’s college basketball game in early February 2024 between the University of Maryland Terrapins and the University of Iowa Hawkeyes to watch Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark play. That game took place in College Park, Maryland. Klobuchar suggested Schmitt was confusing the Hawkeyes with the Atlanta Hawks. “For a U.S. senator to have false information and insinuate, based on a confusion about a team name, that I knew, knowing my Midwest sports, and insinuate that you were in another city, that you were somehow involved that day in what was happening in Georgia, and then call it garbage is something that deserves an apology,” Klobuchar said.
