WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee is demanding his colleagues across the aisle apologize to former special counsel Jack Smith after Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt launched false accusations at a recent hearing and called the former Justice Department official a “dirtbag.”
Committee ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., accused his Republican counterparts in a letter Wednesday of violating committee rules for
presenting records they say supported accusations against Smith at the Sept. 29 hearing. Committee Democrats, Durbin said, did not have a chance to review the records in advance or later.
“We request that you immediately provide these and all other documents that you have withheld, commit to fully complying with Senate rules in the future, and apologize to Mr. Smith on behalf of the Committee for the unacceptable personal attacks and false accusations of perjury he faced during this hearing,” Durbin wrote in the letter to GOP Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, first reported by Politico.
Durbin specifically highlighted a poster displayed by Schmitt’s staff purporting to show text messages between Smith and security personnel about his attendance at an Atlanta Hawks NBA game. Schmitt intimated the messages were proof that Smith had been in Atlanta during a development in the Fulton County, Georgia, election interference case against then-former President Donald Trump.
Two staff members behind Schmitt quickly flashed the poster before the senator accused Smith of perjury for denying attendance at the game and said the former prosecutor will be remembered “as a total dirtbag.”
Democrats on the panel asked for, but did not receive, copies so that they and Smith could view the poster’s contents more clearly.
The accusations were immediately debunked in real-time during the hearing when Smith said he recalled being at a University of Maryland women’s basketball game against the University of Iowa to see the popular Iowa player Caitlin Clark on the date in question.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., then clarified that Schmitt had confused the Iowa Hawkeyes with the Atlanta Hawks, in a humiliating moment for Schmitt that quickly spread on social media.
The situation, and lack of shared records, “caused needless confusion, slowed down the business of the Committee, introduced the possibility that false information would be entered uncontested into the record, and created an embarrassing stain on one of the most important committees in Congress,” Durbin wrote.
“While Senator Klobuchar successfully clarified that Mr. Smith had attended a basketball game in a different state on the date in question, and subsequent reporting confirmed the same, Senator Schmitt has since doubled down on his false assertions. He has continued to publicly call Mr. Smith a liar and ‘dirtbag,’” Durbin continued, citing repeated comments from Schmitt to news media following the hearing.
The Republican-led hearing, titled “Oversight of Jack Smith’s Abuse of Authority and the Targeting of Republicans and Related Matters,” followed nearly two years of allegations by Grassley that the former special counsel improperly collected phone records of dozens of members of Congress during his probe of Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Grassley has also accused Smith of collecting information on Republican-affiliated organizations and individuals.
The insurrection followed Trump’s alleged conspiracy to create fake electors to swing the 2020 presidential election in his favor.
Smith denies any wrongdoing.
In an apparent response to the letter, Grassley posted on X just after 12:30 p.m. Eastern Thursday that “Jack Smith should apologize for taking the bank records of 42 Iowans & 4,782 Americans.”
When asked earlier for a response to Durbin’s letter, a spokesperson for Grassley pointed States Newsroom to the Iowa senator’s Sept. 29 comments about the hearing to Newsmax’s “The Record with Greta Van Susteren.” The comments did not include an apology.
“I think that we learned through the thousands of pages that I’ve released to the public that Jack Smith was a tool of the Biden administration to put Trump in prison. (Trump) was the only one indicted, but the records that we (made) public today, and a few days ago, show that he swept at least 400 Republican organizations into his investigation, and 44 members of Congress by subpoenaing their phone records,” Grassley told the conservative media outlet.
In a response to Durbin’s letter on Friday, Grassley said committee Democrats “have run roughshod over Committee rules” in the past.
“I need not remind you that my oversight of this matter is years in the making, has been supported by courageous whistleblowers who came to my office concerned about the rotten political bias at the heart of Jack Smith’s investigation, and has been transparent with the American people and my Democratic colleagues from the get-go,” Grassley wrote in a four-page letter.
The Iowa Republican continued later in the letter: “Contrary to your misguided statement, the major embarrassment of the hearing was Democrats falling over themselves defending unlawful and unconstitutional actions by Jack Smith.”
The letter did not contain an apology, and Grassley said Democrats have been provided with thousands of pages of records and are invited to his office next week to review records Durbin specified in his letter.
Grassley further accused committee Democrats of failing to cooperate on previous investigations, including a 2020 COVID-19 matter, an inquiry into Hunter Biden and the vetting of Trump’s former personal attorney who now sits on the federal bench.
Schmitt’s office did not immediately respond for comment.
Durbin’s letter also requested records from Sen. Josh Hawley, also a Missouri Republican. Hawley’s office did not immediately respond for comment.
Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.
