Sickophants

[Vrede too]

Republicans wanted Jack Smith to give them a smoking gun. They got a gaffe instead.

... Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri unsuccessfully sought to implicate Smith in a plot to attend a sporting event as a cover for investigating Trump election interference claims, then called him a "dirtbag." Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said the former prosecutor made him "want to throw up in my mouth." And Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, comparing him to "Javert from 'Les Mis,'" said Smith's probe was "the most egregious abuse of power in the history of the Department of Justice."

... Judiciary Committee Republicans did little Tuesday to challenge the substance of Smith's criminal case against Trump for seeking to subvert the 2020 presidential election. Smith reinforced his contention that Trump mounted an unprecedented criminal assault on the transfer of power, seeking to derail Joe Biden's victory and then capitalizing on the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol — unleashed by a mob of his supporters — to further that goal.

Smith also defended the work of his staff and decried the Trump-led Justice Department's decision to fire them as "illegal." And he made his most forceful case yet that the probe he led was actually fueled by Republican witnesses who broke from Trump over his handling of the 2020 election.

"It's very hard to understand how our investigation can be viewed as partisan when the strongest witnesses, the people who were the difference between the rule of law and not, were Republicans," Smith said.

... When Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) ripped into Smith for secretly obtaining her late brother Lindsey Graham's phone records as part of his inquiry, Smith hailed him as a "patriotic public servant" and who likely would have been a featured witness in Trump's trial — because he eventually concluded Trump's election fraud claims were false.

... Ultimately, Smith's hearing Tuesday may end up being best remembered for a high-profile gaffe by Schmitt, who accused Smith of secretly traveling to Atlanta at the very moment local prosecutor Fani Willis — who had also charged Trump over the 2020 election scheme — was facing damaging questions about her conduct. As proof, displayed on an elaborate poster, Schmitt offered text messages suggesting that Smith attended a basketball game on Feb. 3, 2024 — the same day the Atlanta Hawks played the Golden State Warriors.

Schmitt revelled as a clearly flummoxed Smith struggled to discern what Schmitt was talking about.

"I don't think you know that we have this stuff," Schmitt said. "So I'll give you a second to process it so you don't perjure yourself."

After a few moments, Smith did recall having attended a basketball game — but not in Atlanta. It wasn't the Hawks his colleagues were discussing in a series of texts, Smith explained, but the Hawkeyes, whose star Caitlin Clark was playing in Maryland that day.

"It was because Caitlin Clark was coming to Maryland to play, and so we went to the game," Smith said.

Immediately after the exchange, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) fact-checked Schmitt in real-time, confirming the date of the Iowa-Maryland game and suggested that her colleagues' reliance on "false information based on confusion about the name of a team" warranted an apology.

"You don't call someone a dirtbag when you haven't done your own research and you don't have your facts straight," Klobuchar said after the hearing. "And it just shows how completely out of control this whole thing was."

Opps.

Schmitt did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his allegations.

MAGA = Cowardice