Sen. Eric Schmitt Accused Jack Smith of Perjury Over an NBA Game He Never Attended

The theory fell apart on its own exhibit. State Farm Arena in Atlanta, home of the Hawks, labels its rows alphabetically, not numerically — so a seat designated "109 Row 1" cannot exist there ^[1]. Smith clarified under questioning that he had instead attended a University of Maryland women's basketball game against the University of Iowa that same day, drawn by Iowa star Caitlin Clark — a venue where section 109 does, in fact, have a numbered Row 1 ^[1][3].

Sen. Amy Klobuchar identified the actual source of the confusion live at the hearing: Schmitt had mixed up the NBA's Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes ^[2][3]. "Could it then be that the University of Iowa was the Hawkeyes? Perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully," she said, later adding that Schmitt was the only person at the hearing who needed "rehabilitation" ^[3]. No evidence supports Schmitt's claim that Smith attended the Hawks game or met with Willis — the texts, read correctly, describe a different game in a different state ^[1][2].

Despite the on-the-record correction, Schmitt did not retract the claim. He later repeated the debunked theory on The Charlie Kirk Show, where hosts amplified it without noting the arena-seating error that undid it on camera ^[2]. Sen. Adam Schiff called the exchange "the exact moment I knew Republican attacks on Jack Smith were a colossal mistake" ^[3].

The hearing clip itself went viral for a different reason: a reaction shot of Sen. Katie Britt sitting motionless and wide-eyed during the exchange. On X, one repost by user thepondering_ drew more than 11 million views and 37,000 likes within a day; an edited version set to the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme added another 177,000 views ^[4]. On Reddit, the clip pulled over 13,000 upvotes on r/WatchPeopleDieInside and 6,600 on r/gifs within a day, and by early October it had spread to Threads as a general-purpose reaction meme, detached from the hearing that produced it ^[4]. The underlying false perjury accusation rode along with every repost, even as most viewers engaged with it purely as comedy.

FALSE. Schmitt's claim that Jack Smith attended an Atlanta Hawks game and coordinated with Fani Willis is contradicted by the arena's own seating layout and by Smith's corroborated account of attending a Maryland–Iowa women's basketball game thousands of miles away ^[1][3]. The text message Schmitt cited as proof instead supports Smith's version of events once the row-numbering mismatch is accounted for ^[1]. A nationally televised perjury accusation against a former federal prosecutor was built on a mixed-up team name, and it wasn't withdrawn even after being disproven on camera ^[2][3].