Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) let loose on Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) Tuesday during a Senate hearing after the Missouri Republican lobbed a false accusation against former special counsel Jack Smith.
He then fired personal attacks at Smith, calling him a "dirtbag" — before being told his own information was completely wrong.
Schmitt had asked Smith, who was testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his investigations into President Donald Trump, whether he was in Atlanta in February 2024 for a basketball game between the Atlanta Hawks and the Golden State Warriors. Smith said he wasn’t.
Schmitt followed up with another question: whether he met Fani Willis — the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, who led the state's election interference prosecution against Trump — at the game. Smith said he had never met Willis.
Schmitt briefly showed supposed text messages that he suggested proved Smith had, in fact, attended the basketball game in Atlanta, and called Smith a “dirtbag” for undermining public trust in the criminal justice system related to the Justice Department investigations he led into Trump.
But Klobuchar pointed out Schmitt appeared to confuse the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes, the basketball team for the University of Iowa — a game that Smith did admit to attending around the same time.
“That might be the confusion over the names of the team, but perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully,” Klobuchar told Schmitt.
Schmitt aggressively fired back.
“Whose questioning is this by the way, are you using your time, senator? Is this what this is, are we just having like an open session here? I'm glad you're trying to rehabilitate the witness, but it's not your time,” Schmitt said, raising his voice.
“I presented him with text messages about him wanting to meet with people that could have obviously been related to the prosecution that was coordinated with his office in Atlanta!”
Klobuchar fired back, telling Schmitt that he should have his “facts straight” before accusing “someone of being a ‘dirtbag,’” adding that he got “the teams wrong.”
“You had the teams wrong, sir!” Klobuchar said.
"You had the teams wrong!"
Sen. Amy Klobuchar gets heated with Sen. Eric Schmitt after the Republican appears to have falsely accused Jack Smith of meeting with Fani Willis in Atlanta pic.twitter.com/xYMopydWpo
— Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) September 29, 2026