He was elected State Treasurer and when Attorney General Josh Hawley went to Washington, Schmitt was appointed to move across the street to replace him. He caught whatever political virus Hawley left behind. I’ve said before that he left the best part of himself in the Capitol.
He apparently now bathes in Trump Kool-Aid. The day that a prominent Republican consulting firm tried to start a boomlet for him as J.D. Vance’s running mate in two years, Schmitt turned his inner attack dog loose and in a matter of minutes proved why we do not need to see him one breath away from the presidency, assuming fellow Kool-Air bather Vance is picked to head the ticket.
You’ve undoubtedly seen the video of his smug, misguided attack of Smith and his charge that Smith had gone to Atlanta to meet with Fulton County Prosecutor who had admitted she and one of her associates had been associating too closely, a relationship that eventually led to the dismissal of 13 co-conspiracy charges she had filed against Donald Trump. He’d even gone to an Atlanta Hawks NBA game while he was there, said Schmitt.
Smith said he recalled going to a University of Maryland women’s basketball game to see Caitlin Clark and her Iowa Hawkeyes. And Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, whose staff rapidly learned there had, indeed, been a game in Maryland that night, quickly suggested that Schmitt didn’t know the difference between the Atlanta Hawks and the Iowa Hawkeyes. It was one of the greatest political takedowns in memory, a “My Cousin Vinnie” moment for real.
Republicans on the committee wanted to get Smith to admit he had behaved unethically and illegally by meeting with Fani Willis on the day her affair was revealed.
When Schmitt found himself waist deep in it, he refused to back down. He slogged ahead and accused Smith of perjury and showed an incredible lack of maturity for a U. S. Senator by calling Smith “a total dirtbag.”
At the end day, Trumpist GOPers had failed to ruffle Smith enough to get him to make him admit what they wanted him to admit—that he had meddled in Willis’ affairs, more legal than personal, and had weaponized the Justice Department. And if anybody should know about weaponizing the Justice Department, it’s Republicans.
The Republican witch hunters spent the day beating up on Smith but in the end none of the hunters disputed his findings. Their efforts to undermine his professionalism in securing indictments against the president were an embarrassing failure. It might be said they never laid a glove on him.
“The didn’t even talk about the report,” observed California Congressman Ted Lieu. “They didn’t dispute that Donald Trump engaged in a conspiracy to try to get fake electors and fake documents to overturn this election.” He called the stuff Republicans were saying, “idiotic.”
Did Schmitt, caught with his political pants entangling his ankles, apologize for his mistake. Oh, no. Later he told CNN he had not made a mistake. “Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan?” he blithely deferred.
When another interviewer told him there was television footage showing Smith at the game in Maryland, he retorted, “Great. Well, then, he was at the Hawkeyes game.” But he wouldn’t admit he was wrong in the hearing.
On the “Charlie Kirk Show” later, host Andrew Kolvet praised Schmitt, who responded, “Here’s the thing — my job is to ask the questions. He’s already — and if that’s what his answer is — then that’s what his answer is….The purpose of today is just to get him to answer a bunch of questions.”
Bee Ess. His job, the committee’s job, was to get facts.
Smith had them and spoke them and he made our junior senator a fool. Schmitt claimed Smith perjured himself. He didn’t. His description of Smith as “a total dirtbag,” a startling act of discourtesy and juvenile behavior. He shouldn’t stay up so late at night taking name-calling lessons from our president.
He’s going to be a star on Saturday Night Live this week.
Some might think the dirtbag was not the one at the witness table.
Columbia Missourian editorial cartoonist John Darkow—-the best of his kind in Missouri and among the best in the whole country jumped on Facebook with his commemoration of the great inquisition.
Don’t expect any apologies from Senator Eric Schmitt. There are plenty of sycophants who will pat him on the back for becoming the class clown at that hearing. It takes some doing to make Josh Hawley look like the grownup in our senatorial delegation. But for that one day, Schmitt rose, or sank, to the occasion.
Even when Klobuchar proved Schmitt didn’t know what he was talking about, he snarled, “I stand by that statement.”
We should all hope the rest of the people in our country don’t judge Missourians on the basis of our Senators. Really, we should assure them, we normally are intelligent beings.
I want to know who kidnapped the Eric Schmitt that I knew and replaced him with someone that I don’t recognize.
(Picture Credit—some clever person on the internet. It’s not the only one mocking Schmitt; Darkow on Facebook.)