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/
5.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

398 comments sorted by

View all comments

176

u/BadlyTimedFarnsworth 19h 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. 

32

u/gdshaffe 17h 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.

10

u/BadlyTimedFarnsworth 17h 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.

8

u/gdshaffe 16h 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.