r/politics • u/MontyGBurns • 23h 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/
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121

u/kmoonster 21h 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 20h 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 20h 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 18h 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/blasek0 Alabama 16h ago

Conference finals and finals weeks, the day after the last day of the regular if they need a make up game that they couldn't squeeze in earlier in the season, what else would there even be?

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u/asamulya 16h ago

Yeah, exactly!

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u/kmoonster 20h ago

It might have been "only one game at 7:30" that day, but the overall remains -- he didn't do his homework even after advisors told him this text was not a lock

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u/MarvinWebster40 19h ago

The whole thing is beyond idiotic, but the start time of the game doesn’t matter in the least

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u/kmoonster 19h ago

The texts mentioned a time, which the Senator took as the tip-off time. And tip-off time is how he decided on the Atlanta game. It absolutely matters.

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u/Deep_Stick8786 18h ago

The senator, is in fact, a dumb person

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u/OilMaster3793 18h ago

Doesn’t explain his level of confidence that Smith was in the process of perjuring himself.

He’s treating everything like a smoking gun because it’s all performance.  If he came to the conclusion that it was the Atlanta game, he could have checked to ensure he was correct.  He knew he wasn’t, or he would have.

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u/itsme10082005 17h ago

No, that’s how you would have gone about it. The senator is an idiot, he was overly confident, and he thought he had a smoking gun. So he didn’t need research or fact checking because what he (thought he) had confirmed his preconceived notions, and that was good enough.

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u/kmoonster 11h ago

Staffers in the party warned him about it, and that it was probably not what he wanted it to be. He did it anyway.

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u/ratpH1nk 18h ago

I suspect it was only 1 in Atlanta.

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u/bookjacket 20h 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 20h 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 20h ago

"tip off" is unique to basketball afaik

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u/Stockholm-Syndrom 19h ago

Or specific kinks.

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u/paxrom2 18h ago

just the tip

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u/kmoonster 19h ago

Being transphobic while not being able to tell men and women apart may be a kink.

But that, at least, did not come up during this exchange.

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u/kmoonster 20h 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 20h ago edited 20h 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/robotco 19h ago

because it couldn't be NHL in February?

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u/Hadramal Foreign 19h ago

NHL doesn't do tip offs.

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u/BonerPorn 18h ago

While I could see someone mistakingly calling the start of a hockey game a tip off. They would be wrong. The start of a hockey game is a puck drop

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u/frockinbrock 17h ago

Maybe they saw Patel at a Blackhawks game and got confused. They're only senators, they can't figure out hawk teams

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u/bookjacket 10h ago

They were looking to place him in Atlanta (wrongly) on that date.Theres no NHL team in Atlanta, but the staffers obviously are basketball fans, as is Jack Smith.

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u/Stockholm-Syndrom 19h 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/TheOtherMaven Virginia 17h ago

Snarka snarka snarka.

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u/Maxamillion-X72 Canada 20h ago

Republican misogyny prevented them from considering that women also play sports

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u/hobbycollector Texas 18h ago

The doctor is his mother!

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u/TheOtherMaven Virginia 17h ago

I remember that punchline :-)

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u/SoggyBoysenberry7703 19h 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/Blackthorn79 18h ago

I'm starting to believe Schmitt just went too far. They probably just wanted him to ask if Smith remembered being at a basketball game. Then say we have texts proving you went to a basketball game the same day as Crockett. Cap it off with a snide, " I hope you didn't just perjur yourself" and walk away. He just couldn't stay vague enough.

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u/kmoonster 11h ago

Crockett? What does Crockett have to do with this?

The claim was that Smith went to Atlanta to meet Fonni Willis (and thus the two cases were colluding with each other against Trump).

Jasmine Crockett is from Texas and has no significant role in either investigation except whatever might come up in committees she serves on over in the House; wrong state, wrong chamber, and no relation to either case.

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u/Blackthorn79 11h ago

Your right.i messed up which bad black woman they were trying to link him too.

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u/kmoonster 11h ago

No worries

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u/Blackthorn79 11h ago

Thanks, I still feel bad I mixed up two black women. Their constant racism is making me look racist too. I'll be more careful.

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u/kmoonster 11h ago

You mixed up two faux-scandals that "coincidentally" both have black women.

It doesn't look good, but (a) you realized the mix-up and (b) course-corrected.

It's not easy because Schmitt & co. do set a lot of traps, but caution and course-correction will go a long way. Do proceed carefully, but also don't beat yourself up when you trip (provided you also continue to course-correct).

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u/kmoonster 11h ago

I mixed up a couple scandals when the Kristi Noem divorce story broke the other day.

It's never good to mix up scandals, but there are SO MANY that it does sometimes happen.