The ominous 3-word warning everyone missed in the chaotic Jack Smith hearing

Former US special counsel Jack Smith attends a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, September 29, 2026.

This week, Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri was touted in the morning by a puffy Axios “scoop” as “drawing buzz” as a possible running mate for JD Vance’s 2028 presidential race.

A few hours later, he crashed and burned in a Senate hearing while pathetically trying to set a perjury trap for former special counsel Jack Smith. Dramatically holding up placards of text messages between Smith and his team that Schmitt had obtained, he claimed Smith had just lied when he said he wasn’t in Atlanta for a Hawks game in February 2024. But Schmitt, his aides, and his GOP Senate colleagues, in their zealousness, had gotten their teams and cities wrong. Smith was in College Park, Maryland, to see the Iowa Hawkeyes play the University of Maryland.

Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar slammed Schmitt for calling Smith a “dirtbag” and having his cities and teams wrong as Democrats humiliated Schmitt, while Republican Senator Katie Britt, sitting next to Schmitt, looked on horrified—captured by an MSNOW clip that went viral—reflecting how many Republicans should feel.

And even if Smith had been in Atlanta on that date, the kooky conspiracy Schmitt was cooking up was wild: It supposedly revolved around the fact that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had just publicly acknowledged her relationship with her special counsel, Nathan Wade. Thus, supposedly being in the same city for a basketball game, Schmitt suggested, meant Smith was trying to meet with Willis. I know, it makes no sense!

That humiliating exchange dominated coverage of the hearing, and pretty much ended it for the GOP. But the hearing truly was bad for the GOP way before that.

Let’s start with simply having the hearing a little more than a month before the midterms. It signaled to voters that the GOP isn’t concerned about the urgent issues voters care about, from inflation and gas prices to the war in Iran and government corruption, and is instead still trying to impress their Dear Leader by going after his perceived enemies. This was the third time Smith had been called before Congress to answer questions about his investigations, and there was nothing new.

One after another, Republican presidential hopefuls put on a show, with Senator Ted Cruz offering “congratulations,” telling Smith in an Orwellian twist that he “succeeded where Richard Nixon failed, which is weaponizing the Department of Justice to go after your political opponents.”

As if it wasn’t bad enough to be bringing Trump and his horrendous actions—and their defense of his conduct—back into the forefront before the election, Republicans focused in large part on Smith having obtained the phone toll records of some Republican senators in his investigation of Trump regarding the January 6th insurrection. Smith testified that obtaining such toll records is legal and common practice in complex investigations. The records did not include the contents of senators’ calls—just metadata, including when calls were made and how long they lasted.

In an era in which Americans are being surveilled by Flock cameras and worried about AI and how technology will be used against them—and, again, are worried about the economy currently—the last thing they want to see before an election is a bunch of wealthy senators, many of whom are multimillionaires, railing about their phone records being looked at during an investigation of a crime.

It was just a stunning example of the elites caring only about themselves, while a driving force in the election is the belief that Washington doesn’t care about the rest of us, as people are struggling every day.

But probably the most devastating thing for Republicans—worse than Schmitt’s complete misfire, which was a spectacular example of confirmation bias—was having the courageous former prosecutor sitting there and defending his investigation.

Jack Smith is unflappable, and no matter where you sit on the political spectrum, he comes off as even-keeled and self-assured. Unlike so many others who might fear and face retribution by Trump, Smith stuck to his principles.

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation,” he said. “Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power.”

Smith also explained how perplexed he was that Republicans now had this hostile posture, since his strongest witnesses in the January 6th case were Republican officials—Trump administration officials, state officials and even members of Congress.

When South Carolina Senator Darline Graham expressed outrage over her late brother’s phone records being looked at, Smith had the perfect response.

“Do you really believe that Lindsey was going to destroy evidence that was not even in his possession?” she asked.

“No,” Smith replied. “I believe your brother was a patriotic public servant. He was not a target of our investigation, and in fact he likely would have been a witness in our case [against Trump].”

And Smith talked about what has happened since Trump took office again: “History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It’s often weakened by attacks on the institutions and the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort.”

At a time when polls show millions of voters having doubts about Trump, this message coming from a cool-as-a-cucumber law enforcement official who was doing what he saw as his patriotic duty was harmful to the GOP. Much of Trump’s most hardcore base will believe MAGA claims about Smith, the election and Trump’s alleged crimes.

But in 2024 there were many other people who voted for Trump who hadn’t voted for him before, believing he was going to do something about the economy. I believe many of those people didn’t like that Trump celebrated the insurrectionists, nor did they believe Trump won the 2020 election—or that Trump didn’t commit crimes. But they voted for him, some perhaps reluctantly, in a time of economic desperation because they believed he’d make things better.

And those are among the people the GOP now needs to get back. Reminding those people of how dishonest and reckless Trump is—especially those whose first instinct may have been not to vote for Trump—isn’t a winning formula. Smith did a great service for America not only when he served as special counsel but when he sat before the Senate this week and stated the truth once again.

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