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Ahhh, schadenfreude. How sweet. Yes, I’ll admit it. There is something enormously satisfying about watching a bullying thunderdud GOP senator construct an elaborate, spicy trap for Jack Smith, only to fall spectacularly into his own trap. On one level it doesn’t really warrant our full and undivided attention, even for the five minutes it takes to read this. But still…..I can’t resist writing about it. And maybe there is some deeper meaning to take away from it. At least that’s what I’m telling myself as I start to take a deeper look at it. And there are some interesting facts, such as: No, this wasn’t actually a Hawks-Hawkeyes mix-up, that name similarities are just coincidence and didnt’ really play a role in the blunder. Here we go.
The Exchange
I have now watched the exchange between Senator Eric Schmitt and Jack Smith more times than I care to admit.
Here — watch it yourself if you haven’t seen it.
If you are favorably disposed toward Smith—or simply unfavorably disposed toward senators dramatically accusing witnesses of crimes before getting their facts straight—it is difficult not to.
The setup is almost perfect.
Schmitt has Jack Smith exactly where he wants him.
Or so he thinks.
He asks Smith whether he was in Atlanta on February 3, 2024.
Smith says he doesn’t recall being there.
Did he attend the Atlanta Hawks-Golden State Warriors basketball game that night?
“I definitely did not go to a Hawks game,” Smith says.
Did he meet with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis or Nathan Wade?
No.
Now Schmitt springs the trap.
He has evidence.
A staffer (very briefly) produces a giant poster board containing text messages from members of Smith’s team with images of the basketball arena in Atlanta and Fani Willis. Schmitt tells Smith that he has “a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior-Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024.”
Smith looks puzzled.
Then comes the flourish:
“I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t, you know, perjure yourself.”
Smith looks bewildered.
The poster disappears.
“You just took it down really quick,” Smith says. “If I could look at that again.”
Schmitt keeps going.
Before long, he tells Smith:
“I think you’ve already perjured yourself.”
And later he calls him a “total dirtbag.”
There is just one problem.
Jack Smith wasn’t in Atlanta.
He was at a basketball game in College Park, Maryland.
Watching Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes.
But this isn’t a Hawks-Hawkeyes mixup.
The Greatest Gotcha That Wasn’t
This is where most accounts of the story have stopped.
Schmitt—or his staff—apparently confused the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Ha ha.
Except based on a closer look and things Schmitt has said, I don’t think that explanation really applies. And the fact that it doesn’t apply makes the failure even worse.
Here is what the supposedly incriminating text messages actually say:
J.P. Cooney:
“Hey man. Is 109 Row 1 reserved for Jack?”
J.P. Cooney:
“Damn. Thank you for saving– but we are good. Ask Harbach.”
Gavin Wallach:
“He is already down here. Thanks.”
That’s it.
Read them again.
There is no “Atlanta.”
There is no “Hawks.”
There is no “Hawkeyes.”
There is no “Warriors.”
There is no Fani Willis.
There is no Nathan Wade.
For that matter, there isn’t even the word “basketball.”
Yet Schmitt told Smith that he possessed texts that “said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior-Hawks game.”
They said nothing of the kind.
Look at the Poster
This is where the poster itself becomes fascinating. Let’s look at it again.
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The texts don’t tell the story Schmitt was telling.
The poster does.
Someone took those three ambiguous messages and placed them alongside photographs of Fani Willis, Nathan Wade and Jack Smith.
Behind them is the Atlanta arena.
Another box announces that on February 2, the day before, Willis acknowledged her personal relationship with Wade.
Visually, the argument is complete.
Smith. Atlanta. Willis. Wade. Secret communications.
Except those connections weren’t contained in the evidence.
They had been added around it.
The Defective Detective Work by Schmitt’s Staff
And apparently Schmitt’s staff did some detective work to get there.
After the hearing, Schmitt explained that the Atlanta game was the only NBA game—or NCAA men’s game—his staff found fitting the timing they were examining. He has insisted that his questioning therefore wasn’t a mistake.
So they had the texts; they inferred basketball since it was February and that was the only likely type of game going on; they saw timestamps around 7:30, so they did some googling for basketball games starting around 7:30 on February 3, 2024. They checked NBA and Men’s college games. Out of that sample — only Atlanta popped up.
They apparently didn’t check women’s basketball.
Had they done so, they might have discovered that Iowa was playing Maryland that evening in College Park.
Caitlin Clark scored 38 points.
And Jack Smith was there. Here’s the video proving it.
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But it gets better.
Section 109, Row 1
There was one genuinely specific clue in Schmitt’s evidence.
“109 Row 1.”
It would take maybe one minute to check and see whether the Atlanta arena has a “109 Row 1” seating scenario.
It doesn’t.
At State Farm Arena in Atlanta, where Schmitt was claiming Smith had attended Hawks-Warriors, Section 109 used lettered rows—not “Row 1.”
At Maryland’s Xfinity Center, Section 109 has numbered rows.
In other words, one of the few concrete details in Schmitt’s evidence appears to have pointed away from Atlanta and toward Maryland.
But no one checked.
Someone apparently researched this story deeply enough to find Smith’s team’s private text messages.
Someone examined basketball schedules.
Someone decided those messages placed Smith in Atlanta.
Someone connected that supposed trip to Fani Willis and Nathan Wade.
Someone designed that enormous poster.
Someone briefed Schmitt.
And apparently nobody typed the equivalent of:
State Farm Arena Section 109 Row 1
into Google.
Why Is This So Satisfying?
This story went viral almost immediately.
And I think there is a reason beyond the obvious partisan pleasure.
It has the structure of a tiny morality play.
Schmitt isn’t merely asking Smith questions.
He is prosecuting him.
He knows the answer before Smith gives it.
He has the secret evidence.
Smith is trapped.
Schmitt even gives him that wonderfully condescending warning about avoiding perjury.
The audience understands the role each man is supposed to play.
Schmitt is the prosecutor.
Smith is the exposed liar.
Then, almost instantaneously, the roles reverse.
The evidence doesn’t expose Smith.
It exposes the inadequacy of Schmitt’s accusation.
That is an ancient dramatic device. The person laying the trap falls into it himself.
Call it irony. Call it poetic justice.
Or, if we’re being less literary about it, call it schadenfreude.
It is enormously satisfying.
But I think there’s a reason this particular piece of schadenfreude has such bite.
Contempt Is a Terrible Investigative Method
Listen to the language surrounding the questioning, the bush league namecalling that Schmitt applied to Smith.
“Villain.”
“Dirtbag.”
Perjury.
This isn’t skepticism.
It’s contempt.
And contempt does something dangerous to the way humans tend to process evidence.
Once we’re certain somebody is a villain, ambiguous facts stop being ambiguous. We let them drop into the narrative that we want to believe.
Confirmation bias, they call it in the investigations world.
An unexplained basketball ticket becomes a clandestine trip to Atlanta.
Atlanta becomes Fani Willis.
Fani Willis becomes coordination.
Smith’s denial doesn’t weaken the theory.
It strengthens it.
Now he’s lying too. Confirms he’s a dirtbag, a villain.
And the loop goes on.
This is how confirmation bias works in ordinary life. And that’s how most of America is processing information these days. We are so polarized; we have so much contempt for the Other Side….it really blurs things.
But when it happens in a United States Senate hearing, accompanied by an accusation of criminal conduct, the consequences are considerably greater and we at least pause and think about it.
And Schmitt himself provides an interesting case study.
The Missouri Independent unearthed video of a much younger Schmitt talking about the need for “a more civil tone in politics, now more than ever.”
Yeah, right. How’s that working out for you now?
It also traces the evolution of his rhetoric as his national political ambitions grew—from a conservative Missouri legislator known for working across the aisle to a national figure increasingly describing political opponents as radicals and enemies.
Whatever explains that evolution, the contrast is striking.
“My Job Is to Ask the Questions”
Afterward, Schmitt defended himself with a phrase that deserves more attention.
“My job is to ask the questions.”
Precisely.
And that’s what makes this episode worth remembering.
Because at the crucial moment, Schmitt didn’t ask the question.
He didn’t say:
Mr. Smith, what do these texts mean?
He told Smith what they meant.
He told him they placed him in Atlanta.
He suggested Smith was lying.
He warned him about perjury.
And then the evidence got another hearing.
It turned out to have a very different story to tell.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve enjoyed watching this clip so much.
Yes, there is some partisan schadenfreude involved. There is something undeniably pleasurable about watching someone deliver an elaborate theatrical “gotcha” only to discover that he has gotten himself.
But there’s a useful warning buried inside the comedy.
Evidence is most valuable when it has the capacity to surprise us.
Once we’ve decided in advance what it must mean—because we already know who the heroes and villains are—we aren’t investigating anymore.
We’re illustrating a story we’ve already written.
And every once in a while, somebody checks Section 109, Row 1.
Audio listeners can stop here.
https://www.washingtonpost.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/
https://www.nationalreview.
https://transcripts.cnn.com/
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