{"id":226071,"date":"2026-09-30T12:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/you-make-me-want-to-throw-up-republicans-attack-ex-special-counsel-jack-smith-at-senate-hearing-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T12:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:54:14","slug":"you-make-me-want-to-throw-up-republicans-attack-ex-special-counsel-jack-smith-at-senate-hearing-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/you-make-me-want-to-throw-up-republicans-attack-ex-special-counsel-jack-smith-at-senate-hearing-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You make me want to throw up\u2019: Republicans attack ex-special counsel Jack Smith at Senate hearing – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOP senators lash out on Smith, who led criminal cases against Trump, with invective and inaccurate information
Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led two criminal cases against Donald Trump<\/a> in 2023, faced attacks from Republicans<\/a> in a wide-ranging hearing on Tuesday that included a basketball mix-up, a reference to the tooth fairy and accusations of perjury.
In the Senate judiciary committee hearing on Tuesday<\/a>, the Republican senator Eric Schmitt, of Missouri, raised perjury allegations against Smith, seemingly over a mix-up about the Atlanta Hawks and University of Iowa Hawkeyes basketball teams.
Schmitt, who called Smith a \u201cdirtbag\u201d, claimed the prosecutor went to Atlanta to attend a Hawks game on 3 February 2024, and insinuated Smith may have met with Fani Willis, the former Fulton county district attorney who brought state charges against Trump.
But Smith denied ever attending an Atlanta Hawks game. He later clarified that he attended a University of Iowa Hawkeyes game in Maryland to watch Caitlin Clark play.
Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic senator of Minnesota, admonished Schmitt for presenting the claim as evidence and accusing Schmitt of lying.
\u201cI would just say, for a US senator to have false information, and imply, based on a confusion about the name of a team \u2026 that you were in another city, that you were somehow involved, that day, in what was happening in Georgia, and then call you a \u2018dirtbag\u2019, is something that deserves an apology,\u201d Klobuchar said.
The Guardian has asked Schmitt\u2019s office for comment.
The unusual exchange between Schmitt and Smith became a highlight of the hearing on social media.
Smith also testified to the Senate judiciary committee to defend his handling of two federal investigations into Trump \u2013 one related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the other regarding Trump\u2019s mishandling of classified documents.
Both cases were dismissed before going to trial.
Republicans have accused Smith of bringing the investigations to undermine Trump and targeting Republicans<\/a> in the process \u2013 including by subpoenaing phone records from members of Congress.
Smith has defended his practices, saying the subpoenas were necessary to collect evidence that Trump called members of Congress to try to delay the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
But Tuesday\u2019s hearing was also defined by other tense exchanges between Republican senators and Smith.
The Republican John Kennedy, of Louisiana, appeared frustrated after raising accusations that Joe Biden or his White House staff told Merrick Garland, the then attorney general, to prosecute Trump \u2013 an allegation with no public evidence.
Smith said he did not know about conversations between Biden and Garland regarding the subject.
\u201cDo you believe in the Tooth Fairy?\u201d Kennedy asked Smith. \u201cHow about the Easter Bunny?\u201d
The question elicited a response from Smith: \u201cI no longer believe in the Easter Bunny.\u201d
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At one point, Kennedy told Smith: \u201cYou make me want to throw up in my mouth.\u201d
Ted Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas who became increasingly angry while talking about Smith subpoenaing congressional members\u2019 phone records, told Smith: \u201cJavert from Les Mis would look at you with astonishment.\u201d
Cruz insinuated that Smith used his position as a special counsel to target Republicans by requesting records from the Republican National Committee and other conservative lawmakers.
Darline Graham, the senator from South Carolina, used her time during the hearing to accuse Smith of \u201ctrying to bully\u201d her brother, the late senator Lindsey Graham, and causing him stress with subpoenas.
But Smith pushed back on Darline Graham\u2019s assertion.
\u201cI believe your brother was a patriotic public servant. He was not a target of our investigation, and in fact he likely would have been a witness in our case,\u201d Smith replied, adding that Lindsey Graham did not believe the 2020 election was stolen.
Democrats, meanwhile, used Tuesday\u2019s hearing to highlight the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol and accused Trump of inciting the violent mob with false claims of election fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey, declared the hearing \u201ca farce\u201d.
Booker and Delaware\u2019s Chris Coons highlighted that the current administration had fired justice department staffers who worked on Smith\u2019s team.
Despite the partisan divide over Smith\u2019s appointment and prosecutions, Smith said he maintained a nonpartisan approach to the investigations into Trump and that his team had compiled enough evidence to prosecute the president.
\u201cIf asked whether to prosecute a former president today, based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat,\u201d Smith said in his opening statement.<\/p>\n

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GOP senators lash out on Smith, who led criminal cases against Trump, with invective and inaccurate informationJack Smith, the former special counsel who led two criminal cases against Donald Trump in 2023, faced attacks from Republicans in a wide-ranging hearing on Tuesday that included a basketball mix-up, a reference to the tooth fairy and accusations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}