Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who twice charged Donald Trump with criminal offences while he was out of office, appeared before a Senate hearing on what Republicans described as his “abuse of authority and targeting of Republicans”. The hearing took place on Tuesday in Washington.
Senator Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, pursued Smith over whether he attended an NBA basketball game between the Atlanta Hawks and the Golden State Warriors in Atlanta, Georgia on February 3, 2024. The date is significant because it fell the day after Fani Willis, then the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, admitted to an intimate relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
Willis, a Democrat, had also brought charges against Trump alleging he conspired to fraudulently overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Those charges eventually collapsed, in part because Willis was disqualified from the case after her affair with Wade was exposed.
Schmitt implied that Smith might have colluded with Willis and Wade because he was supposedly in Atlanta at the time their relationship became public. To make his case, Schmitt’s team prepared a large cardboard poster depicting text messages that purportedly proved Smith was in Atlanta for the Hawks game that day. Staff members held up the sign during the hearing.
But Smith denied attending the basketball game. “I definitely did not go to a Hawks game, I'm sure of that,” he said, mystified. He also emphatically denied ever meeting Willis and Wade during his time as special prosecutor.
Schmitt, a twinkle in his eye, said he believed Smith had just perjured himself. However, the episode appeared to backfire, illustrating what one observer described as the Trump administration's tendency to “shoot first, aim later.”