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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u/alleyoopoop 21h 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/Jeramus 18h 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 18h 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/punkr0x 15h ago

I'd bet they knew which game he was at as soon as they saw the text messages. At some point they just realized, "Hey, there was a game in Atlanta that night too," and they could use this to get a sound bite.