Hunter
10/09/26
The ranking Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee is demanding his colleagues on the Republican side apologize to former counsel Jack Smith after false accusations were leveled at him and one member called him a “dirtbag.”
In a letter Wednesday, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois accused Republicans on the Committee of presenting records they say supported accusations against the former Justice Department official without giving Democrats a chance to review the records before or after the September 29th hearing, a violation of committee rules.
In the letter to GOP Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Durbin said, “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,”
In a now notorious part of the hearing, Missouri Republican Senator Eric Schmitt flashed a poster purporting to show text messages between Smith and security personnel about his attendance at an Atlanta Hawks NBA game, intimating that it was proof Smith had been in Atlanta during investigation into the Fulton County Georgia election interference case against then former president Donald Trump.
Schmitt said that Smith would be remembered as “a dirtbag.”
The accusations were debunked by Smith, who said he recalled being at a University of Maryland women’s basketball game against the University of Iowa Hawkeyes. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota accused Schmitt of confusing the Hawkeyes with the Atlanta Hawks.
Senator Schmitt has not apologized and has since doubled down on his accusation.
Grassley has responded to the letter in a post on X saying that “Jack Smith should apologize for taking the bank records of 42 Iowans and 4782 Americans.” Later on a podcast, he accused Smith of being a tool of the Biden administration to jail Trump.