Congress
Sen. Eric Schmitt pins down Jack Smith — as a Caitlin Clark fan
Sen. Eric Schmitt thought he caught Jack Smith in a lie. Instead, he outed him as a fan of former Iowa Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark.
In a quest to frame former special counsel Jack Smith as a liar during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, Schmitt asked him if he was in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 2024, for an NBA basketball game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks — amid mounting drama around the Atlanta-based criminal investigation into Donald Trump led by prosecutor Fani Willis.
Smith clarified that he didn’t go to that game. But he did go to a different one on the same day: He was in College Park, Md. to see the Maryland Terrapins women’s basketball team play the Iowa Hawkeyes, led by phenom Caitlin Clark, who dropped 38 points that night in a win over the Terps.
It appeared that Schmitt misinterpreted a text message reference to the “hawks” among Smith’s deputies, who discussed reserving a seat for Smith in the front row.
“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 Feb. 3, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair,” the Missouri Republican asked, intimating that he was about to get Smith to perjure himself.
Schmitt also tried to connect the NBA game Smith did not attend in Atlanta to Feb. 2, 2024 — the date Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was also investigating Trump, acknowledged a personal relationship with another prosecutor on her team.
“I definitely did not go to a Hawks game. I’m sure of that,” Smith said, as he initially struggled to recall the time frame.
After reviewing the messages more closely, Smith said he recalled going to the Iowa-Maryland game and being flanked in the crowd by U.S. marshals. His testimony prompted Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to lash out at her colleague’s erroneous attack, saying Schmitt owed Smith an apology.
Speaker Mike Johnson called Tuesday for more “oversight” and “transparency” of the artificial intelligence industry —including “external auditing” — while expressing a preference that those steps would be taken voluntarily by leading AI firms.
Johnson made the comments on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” just hours before he is expected to meet at the White House with President Donald Trump and top AI executives.
“There’s corporate responsibility here. Of course these folks have to provide safe products,” Johnson said. “But I think a little oversight, a little transparency, a little external auditing of what’s going on would calm the nerves of a lot of people.”
It’s a more measured tone than Johnson struck earlier this month, when he joined Trump in playing down the warnings made by some AI insiders of existential threats to humanity and emphasizing the need to beat China in the race to superintelligent models.
He reaffirmed Tuesday his belief the U.S. needs to strike the “right balance” between staying competitive globally and keeping the technology safe.
“I have resisted the siren song to jump in and do these blanket moratoriums and all of this, you know, hyperregulation, because we cannot lose our edge to China,” Johnson said. “I think we’ve got to make sure we do this well. We need to keep America ahead in this, you know, transformational technology, but also do it in a safe way.”
Several of the prominent executives who have called for a voluntary slowdown in AI development, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, will be at the meeting. Also attending is Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, which said Monday it was canceling the release of its latest model due to safety concerns.
Johnson said Tuesday he was counting on the executives, not the government, to take the lead, saying of the implementation of guardrails, “I hope it’s voluntary.”
“We’ll find out what comes out of the meeting today,” he said. “I think that that’s where they’re headed. I think they see the handwriting on the wall, and I think they want to ensure investors, consumers, the American public that they’re going to do this in a very safe way. And that will, I think, put us in the right place.”
Jack Smith, the former special counsel who orchestrated the federal criminal cases against Donald Trump, plans to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning that he stands by his decision to bring charges against the president — arguing that his investigations “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity.”
Smith has faced unrelenting criticism from Republicans for presiding over what they view as partisan and flawed inquiries; some, including Trump, have called for him to be jailed. Yet Smith, in his opening prepared remarks obtained in advance by Blue Light News, will maintain he made the right decision to prosecute Trump — both for his alleged role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results that led to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack, and for his alleged unlawful retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
“If asked whether to prosecute a former President based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that President was a Republican or a Democrat,” Smith plans to say, according to his written testimony.
Smith will note that grand juries in two separate districts reached the same conclusion his investigation did. He also will reflect that the country is facing “challenges unlike any we have experienced in our lifetime” as U.S. citizens are routinely threatened with indictments because they are seen as opposing Trump.
“Predetermined outcomes increasingly seem to take precedence over the Justice Department’s long-standing core values, traditions, and norms,” Smith intends to tell lawmakers. “History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It is often weakened by attacks on the institutions and public servants sworn to uphold it.”
Tuesday will mark the third time Smith has appeared on Capitol Hill over the last two years. He has previously testified to members of the House Judiciary Committee — first privately, then in a public hearing — as Republicans have accused him of overstepping his bounds.
GOP lawmakers are particularly incensed over Smith’s moves to obtain electronic communications for dozens of House and Senate Republicans around the time of the Jan 6, 2021 Capitol riots. Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)revealed in July that Smith obtained text messages between 44 members of Congress and White House officials during that period.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Judiciary panel’s top Democrat, said in a floor speech Monday, that Smith is “a nonpartisan career prosecutor.” He also criticized his GOP colleagues for having “made no effort to obtain a copy of Volume 2 of Jack Smith’s report,” which details findings from the case involving Trump’s handling of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago.
Senate Democrats may be feeling pretty positive going into their final campaign sprint, but first they must deal with a handful of political headaches on Blue Light News.
Democrats at their weekly caucus lunch Tuesday will talk strategy on a number of measures that could split members who have stuck together on other recent high-profile votes.
Senate Democratic leaders expect a mostly unified caucus against a bill targeting data center costs and another restricting lawmaker’s stock trading, according to a leadership aide, who acknowledged it’s possible some members break ranks if it makes sense for them politically.
Vote counts on a third bill on violence in the West Bank are less clear.
With only five weeks until the midterms, senators will be weighing whether their votes will fly under constituents’ radar, draw bad headlines or drive up donations for — or against — their campaigns. A unified party vote against a cryptocurrency bill this month, for example, spurred open industry discussions of punishing Democrats and preceded a massive spending announcement against a key candidate.
— DATA CENTER BILL: Party leaders have been openly critical of the Ratepayer Protection Act, arguing it wouldn’t adequately prevent costs of data center infrastructure from being shifted to the public. Several are also skeptical about granting a win to bill sponsor Sen. Jon Husted, who’s in a tough race.
A handful of Democrats, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, Alex Padilla and Brian Schatz were noncommittal Monday on their plans.
“We’re going to talk about it,” Shaheen said. “I haven’t gotten the details on it.”
— STOCK TRADING BAN: Democrats also must decide as soon as Wednesday on whether to get behind a House-passed bill restricting lawmakers and their families from stock trading.
Only 13 House Democrats backed the bill, with many rejecting what they saw as a “poison pill” provision on voter ID requirements. A vote for the bill would also notch a win for sponsor Sen. Pete Ricketts, who’s also in a close race.
Ricketts argued Monday Democrats should support the voter ID provisions that are “desired by 80 percent of Americans.”
— WEST BANK VIOLENCE: Sens. Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders plan to force a floor vote on a measure requiring a State Department report on violence in the West Bank, an issue that could tap into wider party divides on Israel.
Van Hollen told Calen Monday he expects widespread support, with about half the caucus co-sponsoring the measure.
“I think we will,” Van Hollen said. “Everybody who wants the U.S. government to stick up for American citizens and Palestinians being terrorized by violent settlers needs to vote for this.”
What else we’re watching:
— WHITE HOUSE AI MEETING LIGHT ON LAWMAKERS: Tuesday’s White House meeting with AI executives could be light on Capitol Hill voices — with Speaker Mike Johnson the only lawmaker confirmed to attend so far. Expected Silicon Valley attendees include Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Palantir CEO Alex Karp and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to six people familiar with the meeting plans.
— TRUMP CONTROVERSIES PILE ON GOP: It’s 35 days until the midterms, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune is still fending off some final curveballs from President Donald Trump. White House decisions to air campaign-style ads with taxpayer funds while separately rescinding about a billion dollars in congressionally approved spending are the latest pre-midterm frustrations for GOP senators — who spent much of Monday fielding off-message questions about the president’s latest actions.
Owen Dahlkamp, Mia McCarthy and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
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