Smith’s game-day texts reviewed by Schmitt never referenced basketball team names

Text messages obtained by The Hill show former special counsel Jack Smith’s staff didn’t reference any basketball team names, adding to the confusion around why Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) errantly accused the prosecutor of attending a game in Atlanta in an effort to tie him to a Georgia prosecution of President Trump.

It’s a remarkable detail after Schmitt was poised to accuse Smith of perjury after the prosecutor denied being at an Atlanta Hawks NBA game. Smith instead was at an Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball game the very same day.

The embarrassing exchange led Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to posit that Schmitt confused the two similar-sounding team names after Smith recalled attending the Iowa game in Maryland to watch star Caitlin Clark play against the Terrapins.

But a review of the volley of text messages turned over by the Justice Department suggests that was not the source of confusion and gives insight into what Schmitt’s team used as the basis for crafting questions for Smith.

It appears Schmitt’s team was largely focused on the date of the game in trying to root out what game Smith may have been attending. He also told Politico the timing of the messages corresponded with the tip off of the Hawks game, noting “the only game at 7:30 tip-off in the NBA was in Atlanta.”

There were also other signs sprinkled into text messages received by the Senate Judiciary Committee that the prosecutors were Iowa fans: a later message referencing Clark.

The messages displayed by Schmitt during the hearing didn’t reference a team playing on Feb. 3, 2024 — just seat numbers. The senator later said his fixation on the game was tied to its proximity to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D).

Schmitt’s questioning of Smith has garnered significant attention , as the senator called the special counsel a “dirtbag” and accused Smith of perjuring himself. On social media, Schmitt’s staff have been mocked for confusing the similar team names while others have questioned whether they relied on artificial intelligence to review documents that may have referenced the teams as part of a broader exchange.

However, neither the Hawks nor the Hawkeyes appear to be referenced in the text messages.

There are few texts exchanged the day of the game, and the messages primarily show Smith staff doing real-time coordination over how to find their seats in the arena and discussing whether to link up after being seated in two different areas.

After asking if a seat in row 109 was reserved for Smith, a member of his team asked if there might be room to join them.

“We are in 201. High; but center court. I will swing down at half to say hello,” JP Cooney, Smith’s then-deputy, wrote in the text.

A Wednesday report from MS NOW indicated Schmitt’s staff was warned by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley’s (R-Iowa) team that the text messages were unverified and told the Missouri senator’s staff they would need to verify the information.

A quick Google search of basketball games that night shows both the Atlanta Hawks game Schmitt referenced as well as the Iowa-Maryland game that took place that same night.

“If this is the correct basketball game, I recall going to a University of Maryland basketball game where Caitlin Clark was playing right around that time. … You could check if that was the exact date, it was Maryland playing Iowa, I think February of 2024,” Smith said during the hearing.

The text messages reviewed by The Hill show exchanges among Smith’s staff from July 2023 to May 2024.

The volley of messages is substantial, and while individual texts are listed in chronological order, the series of documents jump between different time periods.

In late March 2024 — a few weeks after the prosectors’ outing — Smith’s staff again discusses basketball, with prosecutor David Harbach writing, “P.s. Caitlin Clark on tonight at 8pm on ESPN.”

Schmitt’s staff said he did not receive the texts that reference Clark.

“Senator Schmitt has never seen texts referencing Caitlin Clark, hence why he asked what game Jack Smith was at. Had Schmitt received those text messages of course he wouldn’t have asked which game he attended. As the Senator has since said, he learned the one thing he and Jack Smith have in common is they are a fan of college sports,” a spokesperson for the senator said.

In the hearing, Schmitt offered “context” for the question, noting that the day before the basketball game, Willis admitted to a romance with a staff member — an explosive episode in another case investigating Trump’s election interference efforts.

Smith said during the hearing that he never met with Willis or her deputy while he was special counsel.

The premise of Schmitt’s focus on the game seemed to be that Smith had been in Atlanta at the same time as Willis. Republicans have long accused Smith of coordinating with the state-level prosecutors that were also investigating Trump.

“I presented him with text messages about him wanting to meet with people that could have obviously been related to the prosecution that was coordinated with his office in Atlanta,” Schmitt said during the hearing.

Schmitt later defended his line of inquiry.

“We had information, of course, about him being at a basketball game,” the Missouri Republican told Nexstar affiliate KTVI St. Louis later Tuesday. “The only NBA game going on that night was in Atlanta on Feb. 2 of 2024. His team had talked about that. He answered the question.”

“My job is to ask the questions, and his job is to answer the questions,” he added.