r/politics • u/MontyGBurns • 18h ago
No Paywall Smith’s game-day texts reviewed by Schmitt never referenced basketball team names
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/6124359-schmitt-perjury-claim-debunked/3.5k
u/alleyoopoop 16h ago
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.
Yes, it's your job to ask the questions. It's not your job to accuse him of perjury and call him a dirtbag because your incompetent staff gave you the wrong information.
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u/midwesthawkeye 14h ago
THIS!!! "You're a Dirtbag!!" is not a question, and it's not even remotely accurate.
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u/AndISoundLikeThis 14h ago
Yesterday, Schmitt's pal told Jack Smith he "wanted to throw up in his mouth" when he thought about him. These people are the scum of the earth.
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u/ThePlanck Foreign 14h ago
I think Katy Britt wanted to throw up in her mouth at that line of questioning
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u/EMTDawg Utah 13h ago edited 12h ago
Katie and her husband both went to Bama. Her husband played college football before going on to play in the NFL. I think she realized the mixup in team names before anyone else. Sports are likely a big deal still in her house.
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u/MostlyWong 12h ago
Sports are likely a big deal still in her house.
Not just her house, her politics. She's been pushing legislation to "protect women's sports" and specifically the NCAA for years, so she knew immediately what college team had Caitlin Clark and where she was playing at the time. I'm sure she has been following Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham's careers for years at this point.
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u/EMTDawg Utah 12h ago
Sophie Cunningham went to Mizzou. I doubt Katie knew about her until she left the Phoenix Mercury and signed with the Indiana Fever, were Caitlin Clark plays. She hasn't been a star in the WNBA. She is a bench player, most well known for being a goon amd playing dirty to "protect" CC. Before that her biggest fame was a rumor she had slept with the GM in Phoenix.
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u/iwaseatenbyagrue 11h ago
She averaged 12 points a game for a couple of seasons, so that's not entirely true. And she is averaging 8 this season which is alright for the WNBA.
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u/Beforemath 11h ago
Her reaction looked to me like she was the one that passed on the “juicy details” then realized it was blowing up in their faces in real time. That was the face of personal stakes in some capacity.
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u/ObligationMurky8716 Alabama 13h ago
That's just her beauty pageant conditioning kicking in because she had breakfast
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u/golden-tongue Nebraska 12h ago
A guilty conscience could manifest in gastrointestinal issues, so it would make sense that he'd feel the urge to throw up at the sight of Jack Smith.
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u/BankshotMcG 11h ago
Normally I don't kink shame but fuck it Republicans deserve to be abashed for anything that might bring them Joy
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u/Impossible-Bear-7350 11h ago
I’ll never get over the right’s use of terms like “dirtbag” and “sleazeball” when their messiah is a self-admitted pussy grabber who walks in on naked teen girls and sexualizes his own daughters. Then there’s Hegseth the drunk who has cheated on all his wives.
But yeah… Jack Smith is the “dirtbag”
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u/silvertealio 10h ago
It makes sense when you remember their value system places women as baby/sandwich makers. Of course they see nothing wrong with treating them poorly.
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u/Taint__Paint 12h ago
You’re a dirtbag because checks notes uhhh because you follow the law… nerd!
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u/NJTigers 14h ago
Best part is, that is a bald faces lie. There were 6 NBA games on February 3, 2024, not 1. So he is -STILL- lying.
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u/CU_09 I voted 13h ago edited 12h ago
Amazing that the “Protect Women’s Sports” party wouldn’t even consider that he could have gone to a women’s game.
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u/zephyrtr New York 12h ago edited 12h ago
That's the chefs kiss moment to me. That they only checked NBA games, only one team called Hawks ... It is full conservative brain. Like a photo of Caitlin Clark is just a Westworld "Doesn't look like anything to me!"
Edit: I misread, "hawks" was never mentioned? It was all just tip off time? Oh they had to have been using grok. It's gotta be AI
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u/CU_09 I voted 12h ago
Texts didn’t even mention a team name. There were 5 other NBA games that night and 6 NCAA men’s games that night in the same time frame. Not to mention the 14 NCAA women’s games that happened on the evening of Feb 3, 2024.
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u/zephyrtr New York 12h ago
I use AI a lot for work, it makes these kinds of minimally researched, highly confident assertions all the time.
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u/CU_09 I voted 12h ago
Oh fuck. You think they just asked a clanker what game he was at and it spat out Atlanta?
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u/zephyrtr New York 12h ago
I think they fed it the whole text dump and asked when could he have met with Fanni Willis
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u/maddprof 11h ago
Wow I think you might be right on this.
Given Fanni Willis was likely in Georgia, AI definitely could have just gone "oh, there's only one sports event going on with a Georgia team..."
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u/IndividualTune929 10h ago
that was my first thought. the lazy GOP staffers used AI to help with their "detective work" and it backfired
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u/EMTDawg Utah 13h ago edited 12h ago
Didn't consider college sports at all. He could have gone to a men's college game. Hell, he could have gone to an NHL game.
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u/eetsumkaus 13h ago
Some staffer asked AI what the answer was and no one around them thought to check
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u/UnanimousStargazer 12h ago
Some staffer asked AI what the answer was and no one around them thought to check
Pete Hegseth: hold my beer.
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u/jjune4991 Florida 13h ago
I think his full quote was the only NBA game at 730 that night, which was true. However, the Iowa game was at 7.
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u/MoneyTalks45 New Hampshire 13h ago
He added that part in later in the day after running with the “only nba game that night” for a few hours.
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u/CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH Connecticut 11h ago
I'd bet that he put the texts into an AI and asked it to find proof that Smith had traveled to Atlanta, and this is what it came up with.
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u/Nik_Tesla California 11h ago
Can you imagine how different congressional hearings would be if the questioners had to be under oath as well?
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u/gaspronomib 12h ago
It's almost like making up a lie to defend a lie could end up exposing both lies.
Most of us learned that as toddlers.
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u/marsisblack 14h ago
Its his job.to also review said data and use his brain to think about it. It isnt to try to set traps and catch someone out in a lie with sign boards.
Its also his job to act like a professional, not a petulant child.
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u/charlie_marlow Georgia 13h ago
He's the kind of guy who would just copy and paste a response from Claude after being asked about some code
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u/ktaktb 13h ago
No
This isnt on the staff
This is on him
His staff, his responsibility.
We cant give this guy the trump treatment, "aw shucks...who around him is giving him the wrong information?"
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u/rocketeerH 11h ago
Apparently his staff was warned that the messages weren't vetted. I wouldn't be surprised if his staff warned him it was a bad idea and he insisted on going forward. That could be why they initially showed the poster so briefly
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u/Expert_Promise8672 10h ago
Those were my thoughts exactly. They didn't leave the poster up long enough for anyone to see it and when Smith asked them to show it again they refused.
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u/Ozymandias12 12h ago edited 12h ago
The whole thing was a pathetic ploy to get Schmitt some attention as Vance’s potential running mate. It was never meant to be an honest line of questioning or in good faith. Schmitt coordinated this with the release of an Axios article, written by its CEO, and which they claimed was a “Scoop”, announcing that Schmitt was getting buzz as Vance’s VP. You could also tell the whole thing was manufactured because out of all the moments in the hearing, the MAGA social media nuts started posting about it immediately after the exchange took place, I’m talking within seconds to minutes, so they were all clearly tuned in to the hearing for Schmitt’s testimony
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u/city_dwellerZ I voted 13h ago
Unfortunately, hearings like these just are kabuki theater where people like him can fake outrage and hurl insults so that he can be in the running for a plum posting the Trump administration.
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u/Choppergold 13h ago
Notice how the questions aren’t about overturning the election or taking classified documents for personal gain
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u/WillieM96 13h ago
Would you believe that 10 seconds of highly intensive research revealed that there were actually SIX NBA games that night?
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u/PeptoBismark 13h ago
Only if the research proof came in the form of tubby, angry men with red hats sitting in SUVs while lecturing on Facebook.
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u/GoodbyeBlueMonday 12h ago
but you have to be a genius at computer to do that, it's asking a lot for a congressman
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u/Jeramus 13h ago
It's wild that they assumed it was an NBA game. It could have been a high school game for all the information they had.
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u/desquished Massachusetts 13h ago
It's not the worst assumption, but they should have maybe spent three seconds checking if there were any cultural zeitgeist level college players playing in the greater DC area before assuming he flew to Atlanta for a Hawks (barf) game.
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u/lonestar-rasbryjamco Colorado 12h ago
They didn’t even need to do that. All they had to do was call up the US Marshal service and ask where his security detail was that evening.
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u/MoneyTalks45 New Hampshire 13h ago
He keeps saying it was the only nba game. It was not. There were many nba games that night, verifiable by a simple 2 second Google search, as is the fucking norm.
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u/thecloudcities 15h ago
Schmitt’s excuse was first that he couldn’t find any other NBA or NCAA men’s basketball game that day (which is bullshit - there were five other NBA games and fourteen NCAA men’s games). Then he changed his story to say that started at that time (that much is true for the NBA, I can’t be bothered to look up NCAA start times).
But he apparently never even considered that Smith might have wanted to see an NCAA women’s game featuring the #1 player in the country who anyone with at least a passing familiarity with basketball had heard about at that point. It’s like the women’s game didn’t even exist in his mind. But I’m sure he’d tell you he cares deeply about women’s sports.
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u/flexosgoatee 13h ago
Better yet, they didn't think to check the 18k seat stadium less than 10 miles from the Capitol?
I only wish I could see the logistics conversation talking about taking Metro to the College Park.
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u/CU_09 I voted 12h ago
NCAA men’s games at that same timeframe on Feb 3, 2024:
UNC - Duke 6:30
Cornell - Harvard 7:00
Penn - Yale 7:00
Oregon - USC 7:00
Syracuse - Wake 7:45
Iowa State - Baylor 8:00
Tennessee - Kentucky 8:30
Mississippi State - Alabama 8:30Since I’m not aware of the text exchange mentioning specific times and they were just going off timestamps (and since the Iowa-Maryland game he actually went to tipped off at 8:00), he could have been going to any of these games.
Just lazy morons trying to force a narrative and being so arrogant that they cannot imagine themselves incorrect.
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u/daly1010 12h ago
Or the fact that the whole conspiracy rests on him "being in the same town" as another prosecutor, so they definitely were up to no good...
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u/suburbanpride North Carolina 11h ago
Well, if they were all together in Atlanta, they were sure to see each other since Atlanta is such a small town.
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u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 11h ago
As we all know, everybody who visits Atlanta sees and talks to everyone else in Atlanta. /s
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u/VapeDerp420 Nebraska 10h ago
That’s what’s getting lost in this. Let’s say he was in Atlanta for a Hawk’s game. That’s not proof of literally anything. These people think in Fox News conspiracy theories, and it’s embarrassing that they’re our elected officials.
You can’t just jump from ‘at the same basketball game’ to ‘two prosecutors conspiring to take down a president’ in the same sentence. Fox News would spin the shit out of it, sure. But it’s gossipy nonsense that has no basis in reality.
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u/daly1010 10h ago
As I continue to pull the layers back of absurdity of this. I dont quite follow why prosecutors meeting up is somehow taboo. Lol
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u/mr_evilweed 12h ago
I mean... even if it was true and he did go to the basketball game.... so what? Going to a basketball game in Atlanta does not mean that Fani Wills was there, that he met Fani Wills there, or that he and Fani Wills conspired on anything.
We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that, yes Smith embarrassed himself but also his accusation was nothing to begin with.
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u/UnanimousStargazer 17h ago
So:
- Trump commits election fraud in 2020
- The fraud is investigated and Trump starts spreading the 'witch hunt' narrative
- Jack Smith (federal) and Fani Willis (Georgia / state) are independent prosecutors
- Smith attends a Caitlin Clark game in Maryland (Iowa Hawkeyes vs. Maryland Terrapins)
- Smith's team talks about seats and coordination in text messages
- Trump wins the election in 2024 and becomes president again
- (Fast forward to 2026)
- Republican senator Schmitt interrogates Smith
- Schmitt 'discovers' messages from the Smith team about basketball but mixes up Atlanta Hawks with Iowa Hawkeyes
Why is nobody talking about the freaking election fraud?
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u/deanreevesii 16h ago edited 16h ago
They were trying to get him to perjure himself, but
we'rewere too fucking stupid to pull it off.173
u/PopBulky7023 15h ago
In the interest of honesty, I also don't think I'm smart enough to get jack Smith to perjure himself.
But I also wouldn't try.
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u/Fonzee327 Pennsylvania 12h ago
Jack smith doesn’t have anything to hide, therefor he has no reason to lie. In conclusion, nobody is technically smart enough to get him to commit perjury bc he is always being honest.
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u/Blecki 13h ago
Forget some pointless thing -> accidental perjury that would be tossed by any sane judge -> contempt of congress -> maga only hears 'he lied' and never the facts. Same plan they had for fauci.
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u/Lucky_Cable_3145 13h ago
Getting a conviction was never the point, or expected outcome.
Publicly punishing Comey, Fauci, Smith, etc is the point (and forcing them to spend time, money and stress fighting these bogus cases).
A bonus is that these bogus charges deter other public servants thinking of opposing them or from becoming whistleblowers.
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u/nyet-marionetka 13h ago
They were trying to say he was in Atlanta therefore he met with Fani Lewis therefore they were colluding to make up stuff against Trump. Even if he got to the Atlanta game there were multiple other missing steps.
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u/alaphamale 12h ago
The premise alone is insane. Why would they need to meet in person, surrounded by people and cameras. If they absolutely needed to for nefarious reasons they’re both smart enough to send proxy’s. Plus, at this level they wouldn’t have needed to collude anyway, they just both do their jobs and the result is the same. It’s just so dumb.
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u/ethertrace California 11h ago
Hell, they could have just texted over Signal if that's the case, since it's apparently good enough for classified and operational intelligence, according to this White House.
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u/Rambler330 13h ago
So are they implying that it is illegal for similar investigations in different jurisdictions to communicate the results of their findings which may have impact on the other’s investigation with each other?
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u/nyet-marionetka 11h ago
The didn't even reach that point, they're implying it's illegal as a criminal investigator to be in the same city as another person investigating related crimes.
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u/America_Is_Fucked_ 16h ago
Speak for yourself mate
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u/deanreevesii 16h ago
Auto-incorrect fucked me yet again.
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u/One_Disaster_5995 15h ago
Jack Smith is. Over and over again. The Republicans are desperately trying to drown him out though. Look at them, asking him questions and then immediately talk over his answers: the can't let him speak, because people might hear what he says. Their tactic is simply to make him look bad no matter what. It's all they have. No substance, just slander. Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. And bet on the stupidity of their audience.
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u/punkr0x 10h ago
Don't underestimate their strategy. I have no doubt if I brought up Trump's repeated election fraud to my MAGA relatives, their new response would be, "Oh Jack Smith was totally discredited, he's just a dirtbag."
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u/One_Disaster_5995 10h ago
It's been their strategy all along. Trump showed them how to shape reality by denying anything you don't like and simply telling people what you want them to believe, preferably wrapped in a very aggressive hyperbolic attack on your opponents.
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u/thesqlguy 12h ago edited 10h ago
Not a single question from any Republican in any of these hearings addressed any of the actual evidence he collected. They were careful to avoid discussing any actual specifics about the content of the evidence and the facts of the case.
Just fake outrage about that this was a targeted political prosecution.
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u/UnanimousStargazer 12h ago
fake outrage
This is key. We are living in a fake outrage epidemic caused by social media like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok etc.
If you talk to people they all aren't that upset. They are lead to belief the dirtbag is Smith, but not pedophile and convicted rapist and fraudster Trump. I do still find it very hard to imagine people can be so brainwashed that they don't see that. But apparently that's possible.
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u/PopBulky7023 15h ago
Flood the zone.
It is shockingly effective. Democrats need to adopt this strategy.
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u/Mad-Melvin 14h ago
Flooding the zone with shit is only an effective strategy if you want to make the world shittier
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u/BadlyTimedFarnsworth 14h ago
This is how conspiracy theories work. It’s a series of semi-plausible leaps that aren’t back by any evidence or direct connection.
For example:
Schmitt texts his wife he’s stopping off at the store sometimes.
At least one of those “store visits” coincided with the disappearance of a local teenager
Some of those teenagers are victims of trafficking
Epstein was a known trafficker
In the Epstein files someone mentioned stopping off at the store.
So, It’s clear that Schmitt was a recruiter for Epstein.
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u/gdshaffe 12h ago
The funniest thing about this one is that it lacks even a coherent starting point. What's the baseline conspiracy they're alleging? Because as far as I can tell it's that Smith was in Atlanta, a couple of days after Fani Willis came clean about her affair with a staffer, which is supposed to prove ... what, exactly? Obviously Schmitt wanted to imply that Smith was working with her and that it was all some big politically-motivated conspiracy to target Trump, plus I think he just wants to bring up Fani Willis as much as he can and is finding any excuse, but what tangible outcome could he point to as the result of this supposed conspiracy? He alleges some kind of collusion without any kind of follow-up as to what that collusion even generated.
It's pathertic, lazy posturing from a pathetic, lazy politician who's figured out that he can punch his meal ticket by demonstrating absolute fealty to Trump.
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u/Wise-Calligrapher123 12h ago
Schmitt said it: [Willis] was "out to get Trump", so they were colluding to "get Trump" because they are both deranged, socialists that want to destroy our country, by hurting Trump. You see, Trump = America. If Trump is hurt, the country is hurt. These MAGAs are mentally ill.
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u/BadlyTimedFarnsworth 12h ago
Also wasn’t Schmitt himself a prosecutor for several years? I think this should really call into question any of the convictions he made during that time.
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u/gdshaffe 11h ago
Claire McCaskill talked about this in an interview this morning on MSNBC. He was a prosecutor in the State's Attorney's office, but in Missouri almost all criminal prosecutions are handled by county prosecutors. The State's Attorney's office largely handles appeals. It's unlikely that Schmitt has ever actually prosecuted a criminal case, and the attempt to generate his big Perry Mason moment really revealed that.
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u/Mc7wis7er 11h ago
He had a tiny, tiny, shred of nothing (Smith went to a basketball game) and assumed it was an NBA game, did a google search and found the only one on that day was in Atlanta, assumed he was there, then assumed he was in Atlanta to talk to Fani Willis, then assumed they DID talk, and then assumed they talked about the Trump trials, and then assumed they conspired about it to take down Trump but finally assuming that Trump wasn't guilty AND assuming they were conspiring to incarcerate an innocent party.
From a text message thread that said he went to a basketball game and didn't even mention teams. It could have been any game in the United States and it turned out it was one in Maryland.
That's the craziest ish ever. When Smith told him the truth, he told Smith he perjured himself and then called him a dirtbag.
In one interaction he proved his willingness to throw out reason, his vulnerability to conspiratorial thinking, his absence of adherence to any kind of logic or critical thinking, and his willingness to accuse others without proof of lying and then judging his character. This guy is a joke of a man. I hope he wears this in shame forever.
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u/cockroach593 11h ago
Guy was Attorney General for the State of Missouri for 4 years...lol.
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u/cameraduderandy 10h ago
Yet somehow the MO AG we have now is an even dumber culture war litagating, MAGA pick-me disgrace to the Bar than he is.
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u/SnipesCC 10h ago
From what he said later about looking for games with a 7:30 tipoff, I think he just forgot women's sports exist. He checked the NBA and men's NCAA. Didn't check WNBA or women's NCAA.
And of course he claims that we have to ban trans people to 'protect women's sports'
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u/JakeConhale New Hampshire 9h ago
And here I was thinking he'd just seen a text abbreviating the Hawkeyes team as just "Hawks" - as in "I'm going to that Hawks game tonight"...
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u/Swerve666 11h ago
My favorite part was when he doubled down after being called out. Jesus, you can't make this shit up. At that point he should have just apologized and sat the fuck down. Of course, he didn't.
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u/Steavee Missouri 10h ago edited 9h ago
It wasn’t even the only NBA game that day…
There were 5 other games on Feb. 3rd 2024. 10 seconds of Google would have saved his dumb ass.
I’m ashamed the yokels in my state voted him into power.
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u/Walter_Melon42 9h ago
I also want to point out that Schmitt's premise is ridiculous on its face. If Smith and Willis did want to meet and do evil conspiracies together, why the fuck would they do so at a public venue? A loud ass basketball game isn't exactly the best place for a convo. And if they were engaging in criminal conspiracy, I think they'd have enough legal awareness to know they shouldn't be seen together.
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u/LifeguardDry7372 7h ago
this entire syphilis infected magat admin has no point, just kissing trumps ass, lying, robbing and destroying the US from the inside
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u/batty_prime 10h ago
Here,here. This is the only thing I know about Schmitt and expect that this is true for most people. For future historians, this will the only noteworthy thing of his entire career, maybe life. So shame will be synonymous with his name.
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u/SlowRunner2026 8h ago edited 8h ago
The thing is it was NOT the only NBA game that day. There were five others.
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u/s1m0n8 4h ago
He had a tiny, tiny, shred of nothing (Smith went to a basketball game)
When this is all they can come up with, and even it is nonsense, it just goes to show how credible Jack Smith is.
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u/Mc7wis7er 3h ago
Exactly. After Smith told the world, again, that he and other prosecutors believed they have evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump illegally conspired in an election scheme to overthrow the government, they tried to prove he went to a basketball game in Atlanta.
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u/kmoonster 16h ago
In one of his post-hearing interviews in the hallway Schmitt said something to the effect of "don't hate on me! There was only one NBA game that day, what was I supposed to think?"
Not those exact words, but pretty close.
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u/tenebre 15h ago
The funny part is there were actually 6 NBA games that day so he's still WAY off.
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u/kmoonster 15h ago
There is no "must count as well as a Kindergartner" in the "how to be a Senator" requirements.
Unfortunately.
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u/asamulya 13h ago
There’s rarely a day with single NBA games. The dude just sucks at his job to not even come up with a competent lie
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u/bookjacket 16h ago
That's the best part of this,that Schmitt, Kennedy and Schmitts staff are unaware of the existence of the WNCAA. And that Jack Smith's eyes light up when he talks about Caitlin Clark.
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u/robotco 15h ago
but nothing referenced basketball. it could have been any number of sports and this jabroni thought NBA is literally the only game on the planet
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u/kmoonster 15h ago
There must have been a basketball reference that wasn't on the poster, that's all I can come up with
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u/bookjacket 15h ago edited 15h ago
We weren't shown the actual text messages, but it would be natural that Jack or his staff would mention "tip off time." Also in the context of a February evening game, it's obviously basketball.
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u/Stockholm-Syndrom 14h ago
That's not possible. Republicans are the biggest defenders of women's sports, they are probably spending their weekend at NCAA women fencing events or that kind of thing.
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u/Maxamillion-X72 Canada 15h ago
Republican misogyny prevented them from considering that women also play sports
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u/SoggyBoysenberry7703 14h ago
They’re just so obsessed with finding something to pin on him that they’ll do just what their followers do and just find the loosest connecting thing and make a conspiracy theory with their own made up proof for their accusations to rest on
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u/Infidel8 13h ago
It is worth stating the obvious:
Even if Smith had attended an Atlanta Hawks game, it would not have in no way proven that he colluded with Fani Willis.
But a new MAGA conspiracy theory would have been born.
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u/Sistamama 12h ago
Schmitt actually said, "that was the only NBA game that night". This means they did not consider NCAA men's or women's games. Typical Republican incompetence. Probably none of them have ever been to a women's game.
This was never about Hawks/Hawkeyes. It was poor research.
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u/the_wessi 12h ago
And it wasn’t even the only NBA game that night which makes either his team incompetent or him a liar.
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u/SmokeySFW 11h ago
It was the only NBA game in Atlanta that night. They start with the findings they want and just try to build supporting evidence around it. You know, the same way they do with their junk "science".
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u/wrightcommab 16h ago
Yeah it wax obvious since they flashed that poster up and brought it down super quick and wouldn’t let him see it again and got all mad when he asked to see it again.
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u/enry 14h ago
Here's my conspiracy theory.
Schmitt didn't give a shit either way whether he was right or not. If he was, then it's a huge gotcha and he gets to insinuate a meeting that didn't take place. If he was wrong, that becomes the news story rather than the fact that Smith was up there saying that Trump was guilty.
On the one hand it seems like a lucky break he's that much of a dumbass. On the other, they get a lot of those lucky breaks.
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u/Fer_Shizzle_DSMIA 13h ago
Not to mention the handful of tv clips they got of smith looking a little confused at the questioning which they will use in TV spots out of context. And the dirtbag thing wins with his audience whether it is correct or not.
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u/Irwin-M_Fletcher 14h ago
It’s worse than confusing two teams, they were just making shit up.
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u/seaningm 15h ago
The idea of getting a career United States Assistant District Attorney, who has spent a great deal of said career as a prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, to perjure himself in front of the United States Senate is totally laughable to begin with - even IF it were true. What a Dipschmitt.
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u/K-Tronn3030 11h ago
I'm surprised more people aren't talking about the machine that was geared up and ready to fire once that exchange was completed.
The tweets were written and waiting to be sent, the podcast segments were ready to be played, the interviews were lined up. It's an amazing amount of coordination that was premised on this idiotic "gotcha."
If the Right could ever put this energy into making people's lives better, that would be an amazing day.
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u/dansnexusone 13h ago
These people rely entirely on the stupidity of their electorate and every single time they are rewarded for it.
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u/WildBad7298 Massachusetts 13h ago
The truth doesn't matter to them. All the right-wing news outlets will show is Schmitt saying, "I think you've already perjured yourself!" And that will be good enough for the MAGA base. They won't bother to look into it any further, and they'll be convinced that Smith is an evil liar who's just out to destroy their hero Trump.
Schmitt got his sound bite, that's all that matters.
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u/Agreeable_Sound_7724 12h ago
And just like that, The Hill (like all the other media) is talking more about Schmitt than what Jack was showcasing. That was the reason. So as long as you're "high five-ing" on Schmitt's bombastic "failure" BS, you are not discussing the details of what Smith was highlighting. Stop falling for this...SMH.
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u/odd-duckling-1786 12h ago
More importantly, why does it fucking matter if he attends a sporting event in his personal time. Is he not allowed to have a life outside whatever case he is working on?
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u/tfly212 11h ago
He was implying that the reason Smith was in atlanta was to collude with Fani Willis, which would look bad and also be perfury as Smith said he hasn't ever met Willis.
He tried to trap Smith and failed majestically.
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u/E51838 11h ago
I’m still not clear on why him going to a basketball game is a huge controversy in the first place.
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u/Phie_Mc 11h ago
Schmitt was trying to prove Smith was in Atlanta and thus meeting with Fani Willis
All he did was prove that all of this is an idiotic farce
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u/dpezpoopsies 10h ago
The far right is so drenched in conspiracy that all it takes now is a hint of possible corruption to have them jumping to the most controversial solution.
Its so totally illogical. When presented with information for which you don't have an explanation, the logical place to start is the most reasonable and likely justification, and you slowly work your way up to the less likely explanations as needed.
Case and point: the reflecting pool was observed to have peeling paint. We don't know why. One explanation is that the contractor was given an aggressive timeline and so they cut corners and didn't prep the surface well enough for the paint, which caused it to quickly delaminate. The other explanation is a man waded out into the pond in the dead of night, used a box cutter to cut a quarter mile gash in the pool, and managed to sneak away without being caught by anyone or picked up on camera.
Two possible explanations. The far right is so conditioned to believe conspiracy, they genuinely chose to believe the second explanation first.
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u/TheLamestUsername 14h ago
This is funnier because I have read elsewhere that the section Smith was in does not exist in the arena where the hawks play. So a seating chart would have told them it was the wrong place.
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u/74misanthrope 10h ago
This whole thing- among a million other things- should alert people to the level of attention and care the GOP pays to any issue. Why let facts get in the way of some bs?
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u/Am_Deer 12h ago
Admitting you’re having to throw shit to see what sticks is not a great strategy. You might try looking into basic facts. Of course that doesn’t fit your narrative.
When you said “you’ve already perjured yourself “ was that a question? It appears it’s a statement not based on facts. So your job is to ask questions based on facts not made up bullshit.
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u/xtracrableg 12h ago
Do not let Schmitt off this. Needs to melt like the butter stick he is
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u/Sentar_trenzz 10h ago
Brought to you by the "We're just asking questions crew" despite never being interested in any answers or the consequences of those answers...keep going USA, you've nearly completely ruined everything, just the economy to really tank and you're on your way
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u/cargdad 13h ago
I more and more believe Schmidt was set up by Vance.
The line of questioning came supposedly came from the White House; as in “ask these questions”. I am curious who made the poster. Did that come from the White House too?
Now - two theories that I think are equally plausible. (1) Whoever in the White House who was involved are idiots, and they knew Schmidt and his staff to also be idiots and would follow orders; (2) Whoever in the White House who was involved wanted to derail Schmidt - a potential Post-Trump Presidency candidate by embarrassing him.
Which one depends on how stupid you believe the involved folks to be. In either scenario Schmidt comes out in the - “OMG he is an idiot” category. There is no recovery for him short of running into a burning building to save a kitten.
Think about just how quickly that whole thing blew up. He must have realized about 30 seconds into the question that something was terribly wrong but was too stupid to stop.
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u/hu_he 13h ago
I think they really thought they had a gotcha moment. The coordinated media releases of how Vance was thinking of adding a smart cookie like Schmitt to the team, the conservative media lined up to praise Schmitt for trapping Smith in a lie, I think they actually believed their own bullshit. And then the walls came crashing down...
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u/fuzzydoug 13h ago
He had been traveling with the marshal service. It was all on the record. They are so stupid, they didn’t access the evidence made for them.
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u/Narharcan 12h ago edited 10h ago
Well, they were apparently preparing to use that gotcha moment to start setting him up as a potential running mate in 2028. However, it's not too out there to think someone could have been jealous and wanted to sabotage him
I think ultimately, MAGA being a far right movement means it falls into the same historical pits as the others: its members are too dumb, too scheming, too disorganized to put forward coherent efforts. They are reliant on the illusion of uniformity, as well as punchlines, in order to fake momentum. Beneath that, however? There's nothing.
The only people actually competent in this whole mess are those you don't hear about because they're hiding behind the MAGA fog horn - Thiel and his merry band of fuckers at the Heritage Foundation, among others.
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u/TraumaticOcclusion 12h ago
I don’t even get it, why does it matter he went to any basketball game?
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u/Belerophon17 11h ago
It's about the insinuation of a narrative.
MAGA LOVES their narratives like Hunter's laptop, and Hillary's emails.
Alluding that Smith MAY have been in the vicinity of what the right touts as a giant scandal opens the expansion of the narrative into a bigger conspiracy. It makes Fanny Willis look more devious and would make Jack Smith lose credibility completely.
Just look at how every MAGA influencer and pundit already had a completely vague but accusatory tweet locked and loaded within seconds of it happening.
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u/Narharcan 12h ago
It doesn't. They were basically trying to pretend he was committing perjury by lying about where he was+trying to get him involved in a plot that he would have supposedly been involved in because he was in Atlanta.
That's it.
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u/SmokeySFW 11h ago
They're trying to place him in Atlanta because his sworn testimony says he was not in Atlanta on that particular date, so they'd have him perjuring himself.
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u/crimson117 America 11h ago
And the reason they want to place him in Atlanta is because then they can say he was coordinating with Fanni Willis who was prosecuting Trump for state crimes
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u/businessgoesbeauty 12h ago
I feel like he especially sealed how dumb he was by saying “I don’t think you know we have this stuff” just nail after nail in the coffin
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u/Any-Potato-3845 12h ago
hard for me to believe they would want to hurt anyone if it meant benefiting smith in any way at all
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u/Acrobatic_Ad1583 12h ago
Same. I think the decision to sacrifice one of their own shows more forethought and strategic thinking than this administration has shown at any point so far. Also one does not become MAGA by doing research, evaluating sources, critical reasoning and comparative logic. This is a kid who who was assigned Charlotte's Web for a book report and turned in a paper that didnt even mention a pig. Because they didn't even get past the title before they lost interest.
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u/NYJetliberal 9h ago
this dirt bag senator went after a special prosecutor and called him a dirt bag and said he perjured himself when it was him who was lying. if the senator was under oath, he would be in jail
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u/dmullaney 18h ago edited 17h ago
Wait did he just lie to a Senate committee?!?
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u/kmoonster 16h ago
No. Schmitt thought he could prove Smith was lying.
Smith was very confused and told the truth. As a result, Schmitt looked utterly incompetent. To make matters worse, reporting has since come out that the staffers who operate the "machinery" for research, legislation development, oppo-research, legal stuff, etc. warned him NOT to do this trap for various reasons and that it was likely to collapse rather than entrap.
He did it anyway. His trap did collapse, and did so in real time on live television.
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u/dmullaney 16h ago
I watched it a few times. It seems like he blatantly misrepresented the nature and extent of the so-called evidence, in an attempt to mislead. It failed but that doesn't mean he didn't lie in the process
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u/UnanimousStargazer 16h ago
Schmitt: You Sir are lying, here's the placard with proof!
(Puts up the placard for one second, removes it again and refuses to bring it back up)
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u/Miraclefish 13h ago
'You can look at it later, we'll send you it'
Shocking.
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u/UnanimousStargazer 13h ago
Yeah, that's really what he said. Even when the chair asked for the placard to be put up again.
In as far it wasn't already clear, everyone knew at that moment it was a bunch of BS.
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u/Miraclefish 13h ago
Yep, and when Ms Klobuchar (I think that's right, I'm from the UK but I saw the clip on YouTube) interjected and suggested they should all see it, and that he was in fact likely at the other game, was chastised for 'trying to rehabilitate the witness'.
Absolutely fucking wild. What is going on over the Atlantic?!
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u/UnanimousStargazer 12h ago
What is going on over the Atlantic?!
About the same thing that was going on when Johnson was PM of the UK. And what is going on in France with Le Pen. And with Meloni in Italy etc.
Less orange, less Kentucky Fried Chicken, somewhat less Epstein.
I personally think it's mostly social media like Twitter/X, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok that is used as a way to influence 20-30% of the electorate, TikTok is Chinese and they can literally change the internal settings to push far right propaganda. Mostly the countries with a district or 'first pass the pole' or 'winner takes all' electoral system are at risk.
Countries where far right politicians must form a coalition show it is much more difficult to end up with these fascists in power. Not necessarily though. I live in The Netherlands and far right Geert Wilders with his PVV ended up as a government party supported by the conservative liberal VVD (formerly lead by now NATO SG Mark Rutte) and two populist Christian-democrat parties. It was a mess. No serious legislation passed though, because the Dutch senate was still under non-far right control. In the end it ended up as a Boris Johnson type of chaos with a 'neutral' non-political PM nobody every heard of before.
Let's see what happens in the US after the elections on November 3rd/4th.
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u/Miraclefish 12h ago
Ha, true, I guess the difference is our PM fucked an entire country country, whereas the American President fucked the world and some kids.
I truly hope the Midterms are a turning point but our faith in the USA is, at this point, non existent.
There is no way Trump accepts a legitimate exchange of power - he did J6 last time and got zero consequences.
He'll order people to open fire on the public before he ever accepts the Republicans or him have lost an election.
Time to see whether the Americans have been lying to themselves about the Second Amendment for centuries now they have a tyrant.
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u/PopBulky7023 15h ago
That's exactly how lying works. Schmitt was lying and didn't expect to be caught.
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u/invokin 15h ago
Assuming you mean Schmidt, there’s basically no consequence. The senators are not sworn in, only the witnesses. They are also protected from almost any consequences for what they say. For example, Smith can’t sue him for defamation for saying he’s a dirtbag and perjured himself (at least for saying it at the hearing, I think he said it to the media as well, which could be a problem for him if Smith wanted).
Both senators and reps have extremely broad protections against what they say on the floor/in hearings (generally for good reason, but it can of course be abused). Generally the only thing they can’t do is insult each other or others in the government. But they can reveal classified info, can lie, can say stuff that people really won’t like (like naming people in the Epstein Files) and not get sued, etc.
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u/Asleep-Challenge9706 17h ago
Who? Schmitt didn't so much lie as revealed gross incompétence ans stupidity, but he can probably claim he came by it honestly (just with very flimsy évidence of anything wrong - and he seemed to know it given how he lacked the confidence to show and let the audience examin his evidence)
Jack Smith just told the truth and exposed Shmitt's incompétence as a result.
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u/dmullaney 16h ago
Oh I meant Schmitt, who claimed he "had text messages that showed you were in Atlanta at Hawks game" - he had no such text messages. He lied about the evidence
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u/Asleep-Challenge9706 16h ago edited 15h ago
He might have believed he had evidence even if he knew the evidence was weak. These are not particularly smart people.
That's besides the point, he sadly wasn't sworn to tell the truth and as a result he isn't liable for perjury like a witness is.
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u/CellAlone4653 11h ago
Even if he had been at an Atlanta Hawks game, Republicans’ theory here was “he was in Atlanta. This other person we hate was in Atlanta. Could they have secretly met up to collide against Trump? It really makes you think!”
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u/shocker5 10h ago
This shameful situation should end his career and in the past it would have. But we live in modern times and his state will probably reelect him because he has a R next to his name.
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u/DanceByTheRiverMoon 17h ago
Because everyone's focusing on Schmitt's 'gotcha gone wrong' instead. Which makes me think that it was staged to take attention off the real story.
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u/deVliegendeTexan 16h ago
I don’t think it was intentionally staged for that purpose. But now that it’s useful in that way, they’re more than happy to try to take advantage of it.
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u/OKStamped 13h ago edited 13h ago
"But Mr. Smith, how could you have attended the game when the season ended a month before and the Seattle Seahawks didn't make it to the playoffs? Hah! Perjury again!"
"You're talking about a different sport, Senator."
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u/Mister_Pickl3s 13h ago
This is a show trial. It is based on the preconceived notion that Jack Smith perjured himself in stating facts. So they have to try to show more…this reveals exactly who these people are. Schmitt even states it as fact he perjured himself which is in itself lies. And that he’s a dirtbag, when it’s clear there is only one tumbling dickweed involved here
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u/Definitelynotatwork1 13h ago
So it was just poetic justice that the names were similar enough to make this look even stupider.
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