MAGA firebrand Eric Schmitt came after Jack Smith during a dramatic Senate hearing on Tuesday, attempting to catch the former special counsel in a lie about his conduct during his high-profile investigations of Donald Trump. Schmitt, however, had his facts completely wrong — not that you’d know it by watching the right wing content mill.
Instead of admitting the mistake, some MAGA tastemakers have doubled down on Schmitt’s completely wrong assertion that Smith was lying about attending an Atlanta Hawks game in early 2024.
Schmitt’s original gaffe has to be seen to be believed. The Missouri senator thought that he had text messages that proved that Smith was in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 2024, which he believed would have indicated that Smith was somehow colluding with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was also investigating Trump. Schmitt’s “proof,” was a series of text messages from Smith’s staff that referenced a basketball game, which Schmitt was certain was the Hawks’ game against the Golden State Warriors. The texts referenced a game, yes, but one that Smith soon realized likely referred to the University of Maryland women’s NCAA game against the University of Iowa that he attended the same day. Sen. Amy Klobuchar delightedly pointed out that Schmitt had probably mistaken the Hawkeyes (Iowa’s mascot) for the Atlanta Hawks.
Despite this pretty conclusive proof that Schmitt was up the creek without a paddle, MAGA media has doubled down. Here’s Schmitt just minutes later, on The Charlie Kirk Show, attempting to launder his reputation with a feeble insistence that he was right all along.
MAGA commentator Benny Johnson also cast Schmitt’s questioning as a win. He posted an out-of-context clip of the exchange, before it was revealed that Schmitt was wrong. “Senator Eric Schmidt Just CAUGHT Jack Smith perjuring himself on the stand in his testimony,” Johnson wrote, adding that Smith was “stunned.”
Johnson was one of multiple right-wing engagement-farming accounts that tried to recast the moment as a dramatic narrative in which Smith is left floored by Schmitt’s line of questioning. “Disgraced former special counsel Jack Smith completely UNRAVELS as Senator Eric Schmitt pulls receipts that Smith apparently didn’t know he had,” wrote @overton_news, which has nearly 300,000 followers. “It was a deer-in-the-headlights moment.”
In a way, Smith was stunned — but seemingly only because he had no idea what Schmitt was talking about.
Johnson deleted his post later on Tuesday, after it had been up for hours with a community correction. Sean Hannity also picked up and ran with Schmitt’s story, but deleted his post highlighting the moment soon after.
Cynical social media accounts like the ones above, however, likely know there’s little consequence in doubling down. If their version of the event is the first one someone sees, more likely than not it’ll be the one they believe. It’s up to the algorithm to decide which version of the truth the public believes — but only one story, in this case, has the facts on its side.
Schmitt, for his part, seems defiant in the face of his error. “I asked him if he was in Atlanta. He said he was not in Atlanta,” he said following the exchange, according to The Washington Sun. “Jack Smith has lied before. He tried to jail the president of the United States. I have no sympathy for Jack Smith. He’s a total dirtbag.”
