Republicans wanted to put Jack Smith on the defensive. Instead, they keep putting themselves there.
Just hours after Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt suffered an embarrassing Senate hearing fiasco while trying to catch the former special counsel in a supposed lie, his fellow Missouri Republican Josh Hawley jumped on Fox News to launch another attack on Smith.
And Hawley managed to create a problem of his own.
While arguing that Smith went too far in his investigation of Donald Trump, Hawley claimed the former special counsel had gone through Melania Trump’s “personal drawers.”
There’s just one rather significant problem with that claim.
Smith wasn’t even the special counsel when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago.
The FBI search took place on Aug. 8, 2022, as part of the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents.
Smith wasn’t appointed special counsel until November 2022 — more than three months later.
Yet Hawley told Fox News host Sean Hannity that Smith had personally gone through Melania Trump’s belongings.
“He was trying to get his hands on everything related to Donald Trump,” Hawley said.
“He read all of Trump’s phones. He read all of Trump’s documents. Let’s not forget, he went through Melania Trump’s personal drawers, clothing, items very personal to her.”
Hawley then declared the whole thing “ridiculous” and called Smith “totally out of control.”
“I hope he’s held accountable for it,” Hawley said.
However, the FBI search Hawley was referring to happened before Smith was appointed special counsel.
This is where the attack starts falling apart.
The FBI searched Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, 2022, months before Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith as special counsel on Nov. 18, 2022.
So whatever happened during that August search, it wasn’t something Smith personally did as special counsel.
The Hawley blunder would have been awkward enough on its own.
But it came just hours after his fellow Missouri Republican, Schmitt, suffered his own highly publicized Jack Smith mishap.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Schmitt tried to challenge Smith over whether he had been in Atlanta for an Atlanta Hawks basketball game in February 2024.
Schmitt appeared to have evidence ready.
He displayed text messages and suggested they contradicted Smith’s testimony.
At one point, Schmitt even warned Smith that he should be careful not to “perjure yourself.”
Then Smith explained that he had attended a basketball game around that time — but it was a University of Iowa women’s game against Maryland in Maryland.
The visiting team? The Iowa Hawkeyes. Not the Atlanta Hawks.
Schmitt appeared to have confused the two.
So within the span of a few hours, two Missouri Republican senators went after the same former special counsel, and both managed to humiliate themselves in the process.
Watch Hawley’s interview below:
