That’s Your Senator, Missouri

In the category of people who keep claiming the sun rises in the west despite all evidence to the contrary...

Senate Republicans held yet another hearing designed to prove Trump won an election everyone knows he lost.

It was a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, which MAGA senators called to see if they could catch Jack Smith saying something that may be used against him. But let's just start at the beginning.

On November 3, 2020, Joe Biden defeated Trump by more than 7 million votes, winning a clear majority--51.3 percent.

And winning 306 electoral college votes, way more than the 270 he needed to win.

In short, Biden mopped the floor with Trump, winning a convincing mandate. 

A normal human being would have conceded, congratulated Biden and pledged to help with the transition.

But, as we've come to learn, Trump is far from normal.

Instead, he threw a hissy fit. Claimed Biden cheated. Insisted he, Trump, was the actual winner. Swore he had proof. And urged his confederates to take the matter to court. Which they did. Only to lose time after time as they had no evidence to support their preposterous claims. As judge after judge ruled in case after case.

At which point, Trump threw an even hissier hissy fit. Called a rally in Washington to "stop the steal"--which could not be stopped cause there was no steal to be stopped.

Even the Wall Street Journal knows who win the 2020 election…

At the rally, Trump commanded his cultists to take back the Capitol and force Vice President Mike Pence, who was chairing the Senate's election-certification meeting, to rule Trump the winner of an election Trump had lost.

So that the election steal that had to be stopped was, in fact, the one Trump was very much trying to carry out.

Onto the Capitol marched Trump's MAGA foot soldiers. And they pushed past the Capitol police--whacking a few on the head with everything and anything, including a hockey stick. And they stormed into the Capitol, waving a Confederate flag, taking a shit in the hallway, occupying Speaker Pelosi's office and, in general, scaring the hell out of congressmen and senators (Republicans and Democrats) who went scurrying for cover under stairwells and in closets and under desks to be safe from the MAGA mob.

This was, of course, the January 6th insurrection. 

And I know you know about it. Cause, like me, you saw it on TV--as it was happening. But I feel compelled to remind you about it because everything that follows, including that aforementioned Senate hearing involving Jack Smith, is an attempt by Trump to convince you that what happened did not happen.

So it's very important that you not forget what you saw before you are gaslit into submission.

Okay, back to the narrative...

In the aftermath of the attempted insurrection, Democrats and a handful of Republicans, decided that the wrong doers had to be punished. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith, a federal prosecutor, to be an independent special counsel overseeing the investigation of what happened on January 6.

Specifically, what role Trump played in the Capitol attack.

Smith was about two years into his investigation when--boom!--America's voters decided it was a good idea to return Trump to office. In what just may be the dumbest electoral decision—ever! 

Once back in power, Trump did what he said he was going to do while campaigning. He pardoned the insurrectionists--you know, the guys whacking the cops over the head--and directed his flunkies (in Congress and the Justice Department) to investigate the investigators.

And so the Republican Congress people, who should have known better--as many were at the Capitol on January 6, scurrying through hallways and hiding under desks--had a decision to make. Go with the mob or stand up for what's right?

And cowards being cowards, they went with the mob. Perhaps out of fear that the mob might do to them what it threatened to do to Mike Pence.

That brings us to last week's Judiciary Committee hearing meeting, where they compelled Jack Smith to testify, obviously hoping to get him to say something inconsistent with what he said in the two other hearings they'd already held. So they could slap him with a perjury indictment and make his life a miserable hell.

January 6–in case you forgot…

The hearing climaxed with a dramatic exchange in which Senator Eric Schmitt--a Republican from Missouri--confronted Smith with what he, Schmitt, clearly thought was the proverbial smoking gun...

Evidence that Smith had been in Atlanta where he met with Fani Willis, a local prosecutor, in a conspiracy to unfairly treat Trump.

"Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on February 3, 2024?"

Smith looked bewildered because he not been at the Hawk-Warrior game or even in Atlanta on February 3, 2024.

Schmitt persisted...

"What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior/Hawks game on February 3rd...I don't think you know that we have this stuff, so I'll give you a second to process it so you don't, you know, perjure yourself."

Smith said he had most definitely not seen the Hawks play the Warriors on that day. But he had been at a different basketball game around that time. A women's college game--Maryland versus Iowa. 

And Schmitt said...

"I think you already perjured yourself."

And Schmitt closed by saying...

"You may think you are the hero in this story, but let me tell you something: you're the villain. You have weaponized the Department of Justice against political enemies to an extent that has never happened in the history of this country. You will go down as a total dirtbag."

After he was done, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar noted that the University of Iowa’s teams are known as the Hawkeyes. So maybe Schmitt got the Atlanta Hawks mixed up with the Iowa Hawkeyes.

And with that Schmitt became a national laughing stock for not knowing the difference between the Hawks and Hawkeyes. 

But upon reflection, I suspect Schmitt did not mistake Hawkeyes for Hawks. No, I suspect Schmitt was far more demonically dishonest.

I believe what happened is that the Republican senators subpoenaed messages between Smith and his aides. And they discovered a few texts indicating that Smith was at a basketball game on February 3,  2024.

Though those texts made no mention of what game Smith was at or where it was played.

And in classic MAGA fashion, they add a dash of Trumpian logic to those texts. Here goes…

Smith went to a basketball game on February 3, 2024.

There was a basketball game in Atlanta on February 3, 2024.

Therefore, the game Smith went to was the one in Atlanta, as opposed to any of a dozen of other cities or towns where basketball was played on that day. Like the one in Maryland, featuring the Iowa Hawkeyes--the game Smith actually attended.

And so if he was in Atlanta on February 3 (which he wasn't) then he must have met with Fani Willis (which he didn't).

Thus, they "proved" something that can't in fact be proved cause it doesn't in fact exist--a conspiracy between Smith and Willis to treat Trump unfairly.

All in all, I'd say that Klobuchar did Schmitt a favor by suggesting his mistake stemmed from confusing Hawks for Hawkeyes.

Cause the alternative is worse. The alternative is Schmitt just made the shit up based on nothing. Just as Trump concocted that whopper about Biden stealing the election.

Which he didn't. Biden whooped Trump’s ass fair and square. Probably would have done the same in 2024, as demented as he was. But that's another story.

I'm not sure how long MAGA's going to persist with these lies and conspiracies about the 2020 election and what followed. But you know how it is with lies--one leads to another. And another. And another.

For the moment, Klobuchar's wisecrack exposed Schmitt as a fraud, and he retreated from his line of questioning. He had no "smoking gun". There was no connection between Smith and Atlanta-- he made it up by stitching together two facts that had nothing to do with each other. 

In order to save face, Schmitt insisted he still thought Smith was a dirtbag. And he scurried out of the hearing room--just as many of his senate colleagues did on January 6. Surprised Schmitt didn't hide under a desk.

What a bunch of clowns these MAGA senators are. They've followed Trump so far down the rabbit hole, they have no way out.

I'd be tempted to laugh at them, if they weren't dragging the rest of us down with them.