Sen. Eric Schmitt, a close ally of President Donald Trump, suffered an embarrassing misfire in Jack Smith’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, as the Missouri Republican accused the former special counsel of perjuring himself about a basketball game he did not attend.

Schmitt had been attempting to draw a connection between Smith, who prosecuted two federal criminal cases against Trump, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who investigated Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. He said Smith attended an Atlanta Hawks-Golden State Warriors game in February 2024, one day after Willis and Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she tasked with leading the Trump investigation, acknowledged their romantic relationship.

“What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior-Hawks game on Feb. 3, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair?” Schmitt said, while briefly flashing a poster board from the dais with said text messages.

Smith denied being in Atlanta attending any such game. The senator then accused him of perjuring himself, calling him a “dirtbag.”

“You have weaponized the Department of Justice against political enemies to an extent that has never happened in the history of this country,” Schmitt said. “You will go down as a total dirtbag.”

Smith then said he recalled attending a women’s college basketball game in Maryland that same day, between the University of Maryland Terrapins and the University of Iowa Hawkeyes.

The senator’s blunder, which appeared to be a mix-up of two basketball teams with “hawk” in their names, illustrated the haphazard nature of some of the accusations Republicans have leveled at Smith. It was also a humiliating moment for Schmitt, reportedly a potential running mate to Vice President JD Vance in the 2028 presidential election, and one that will likely haunt him if he seeks to raise his national profile.

Schmitt’s gaffe also became a point of contention between him and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., during the hearing.

“I think that people should have their facts straight before they accuse someone of being a dirtbag, and not get the teams wrong,” she said, later adding, “I would just say, for a U.S. senator to have false information and imply, based on a confusion about the name of a team — which I knew, knowing my Midwestern sports — and imply that you were in another city, that you were somehow involved that day in what was happening in Georgia, and then call you a dirtbag, is something that deserves an apology.”

Schmitt’s office did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s questions about where the senator received the information.

Schmitt appeared on conservative podcast “The Charlie Kirk Show” shortly after questioning Smith. Host Andrew Kolvet said it was a “great moment” when the senator “caught [Smith] out on this NBA game.” The line of questioning came up again later in the interview, but neither Kolvet nor Schmitt appeared to acknowledge the senator’s fumble.

Schmitt later suggested to HuffPost that Smith could have lied about the matter.

“It was the only game ― Atlanta was the only NBA game or men’s college basketball game that night at 7:30,” Schmitt said.

The former special counsel testified that he attended a women’s college basketball game.

At least one of Schmitt’s Republican colleagues has pleaded ignorance about the moment. Outside the hearing room, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, declined to answer a question from MS NOW’s Ali Vitali about Schmitt’s mess-up.

“Since I didn’t see the exchange, I’m not going to comment on an exchange I didn’t see,” Cruz said.

This story has been updated to include Schmitt’s comments to HuffPost.

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