The Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate is a long-hallowed institution.\u00a0\u00a0Every Justice of the Supreme Court, every Federal judge, passes through this committee.\u00a0\u00a0If changes are made to the number of Supreme Court Justices, it will begin there.\u00a0\u00a0The Judiciary Committee dates back to 1816.\u00a0\u00a0Famous Chairman include Martin Van Buren, John Crittenden, Lyman Trumbull, Patrick McCarran,\u00a0\u00a0James Eastland, Strom Thurmond, Orrin Hatch,\u00a0\u00a0Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Arlen Specter, Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But yesterday, the Judiciary Committee abandoned its dignity.\u00a0\u00a0The current Republican nonagenarian Chairman, Chuck Grassley, dragged the committee into another \u201cviral moment\u201d in the service of Donald Trump.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grassley called former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith to the witness stand, and tried to batter him with questions.\u00a0\u00a0The intent was clear:\u00a0\u00a0to push one of the brightest legal minds in the United States into committing perjury, so that a spectacle of a man who dared to charge Donald Trump with crimes standing trial himself could occur.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith\u2019s problem was pretty apparent. He was intently aware of the \u201cgoal\u201d of the Republican majority.\u00a0\u00a0He knew that every question could be a \u201cperjury trap\u201d, and that even an inadvertent statement could be duct-taped into charges that the Trump Justice Department would quickly prosecute.\u00a0\u00a0But he came to the Committee anyway, without subpoena, to tell his truth.\u00a0\u00a0He is certain that his team had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the then-past, now-present President of the United States committed felonies both in inciting insurrection and keeping classified materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One after another, the Republicans tried to trip Smith up.\u00a0\u00a0Grassley tried to connect Smith to former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan (another b\u00eate noire of MAGA world).\u00a0\u00a0But Smith answered the question definitely:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve never met John Brennan\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Grassley was slow to pick up the response, and\u00a0\u00a0got half-way into his next question about the Smith-Brennan relationship before he realized that the answer was no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That didn\u2019t stop the old Chairman from excoriating Smith for his \u201cpartisan prosecutions\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the ultimate \u201cgotcha\u201d was left to the Senator from Missouri, Eric Schmitt.\u00a0\u00a0He had been preparing it for days.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201ccatch\u201d was so good, he had his staff float a rumor about a potential Vice Presidential candidacy with JD Vance in 2028.\u00a0\u00a0An array of interviews were scheduled on Right-wing media after the hearing to celebrate the question that would \u201cput Jack Smith behind bars\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After all, it couldn\u2019t be a coincidence.\u00a0\u00a0Schmitt\u2019s staff discovered that Jack Smith was at a \u201cHawks\u201d basketball game on February 3, 2024.\u00a0\u00a0It was the day after Atlanta Prosecutor Fanni Willis confessed that she was having an affair with her lead Assistant Prosecutor.\u00a0\u00a0Willis, another lawyer on the MAGA hit list, charged Trump with state felonies in the \u201cfind me 11,780 votes\u201d phone call.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, Willis not only charged Trump, but required him to submit to a Police booking.\u00a0\u00a0That mugshot now adorns the Department of Justice in Washington today, in a huge banner reminiscent of Mao\u2019s Communist China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They had the seat location that Smith reserved by row and letter.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, they had the texts among his US Marshal security team identifying that he was at the game.\u00a0\u00a0It wasn\u2019t much of a reach to believe that Smith flew down to Atlanta to \u201chuddle\u201d with the Willis team, and try to get them through their crisis, and caught the game as a cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Schmitt confidently asked Jack Smith if he was in Atlanta on February 3rd<\/sup>, 2024.\u00a0\u00a0And when Smith hesitated, confused by the question, the Senator bored in, with detail about the game between the Atlanta Hawks and the Golden State Warriors. Smith said he never went to an Atlanta Hawks game, or even to Atlanta (though he might have passed through the airport). Schmitt moved in for the \u201ckill\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cHere are the text messages from your staff\u201d, and a giant poster, with texts bubbles and pictures of Fanni Willis and her lover was quickly flashed behind the dais.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smith stopped, asking to see the poster again.\u00a0\u00a0But the Senator, convinced he had his convictable moment, wanted to move on.\u00a0\u00a0He claimed that Jack Smith committed perjury, and was a \u201cdirtbag\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0He thought that his \u201cgotcha\u201d mission was accomplished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the Democratic Senator from Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar, wanted to see the texts again.\u00a0\u00a0Nowhere in the \u201cbubbles\u201d was Atlanta mentioned.\u00a0\u00a0And Jack Smith did remember going to a basketball game around that time.\u00a0\u00a0It was an NCAA game between Maryland and Iowa women.\u00a0\u00a0Kaitlin Clark, the phenom of the Iowa team was playing that day (she scored 30 points).\u00a0\u00a0And even better, Klobuchar explained Schmitt\u2019s confusion:\u00a0\u00a0it was the Maryland Terrapins versus the Iowa Hawk-eyes, not the Atlanta Hawks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Schmitt\u2019s sure \u201cshot\u201d at perjury came down to a \u201cbrick\u201d on the hoop.\u00a0\u00a0He (or his staff) was so excited about tying Smith to Willis, that they confused the Hawks with the Hawkeyes.\u00a0\u00a0A later video showed Jack Smith at courtside at Maryland\u2019s College Park campus (a block away from the District of Columbia, Washington DC).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of the venal rhetoric against Smith fell away.\u00a0\u00a0All of the great quotes about a Democratic Partisan Prosecution were swept from the floor.\u00a0\u00a0What was left was Senator Eric Schmitt, making a fool of himself trying to tie real tweets to fake actions.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s what the world will remember from Chuck Grassley\u2019s attempt to nail Jack Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And as far as Eric Schmitt\u2019s future Vice Presidential aspirations are concerned \u2013 they\u2019re as solid as his evidence on Jack Smith.\u00a0\u00a0I guess we won\u2019t have him to kick around in 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Upon Further Review<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bricked<\/h2>\n\n\n\n