“Our position is that a color can be a bird,” a committee aide said of the Stanford Cardinal. The University of Maryland, where the witness says he spent the evening, was not contacted.
WASHINGTON—Citing a senator’s finding that an Atlanta Hawks game was the only NBA or NCAA men’s game in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 2024, Republican aides on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday requested that night’s attendance records from every team in the country named for a bird, widening the Jack Smith perjury inquiry to 43 teams, among them the Stanford Cardinal, which is a color.
The requests follow Tuesday’s hearing, at which Sen. Eric Schmitt, Republican of Missouri, accused Smith, the former special counsel who investigated President Trump, of lying about attending the Hawks game, The New York Times reported. Smith told the committee that the game he did attend that day was in College Park, Md., where Caitlin Clark scored 38 points for the Iowa Hawkeyes against Maryland before a sellout crowd of 17,950. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, suggested the senator had confused the two teams. “Teams,” Klobuchar said. “You had the teams wrong, sir.”
Schmitt had presented a poster board of text messages from Smith’s staff, one of which asked, “Is 109 Row 1 reserved for Jack?” “I don’t think you know that we have this stuff, so I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t, you know, perjure yourself,” the senator said as the board came down, too quickly for most of the room to read it, according to the Times. At State Farm Arena, where the Hawks hosted the Golden State Warriors that night, section 109 labels its rows with letters, Talking Points Memo found. The Xfinity Center in College Park numbers them. Schmitt told Smith he would “go down as a total dirtbag,” said he stood by the word and left the hearing.
On “The Charlie Kirk Show” after the hearing, the senator restated his central finding. “It was the only NBA or NCAA men’s game going on at that time in Atlanta. He claimed later that he was at another game,” Schmitt said, according to TPM. The purpose of the hearing, he added, was “just to get him to answer a bunch of questions.”
A Working Group for Every Bird
The Jack Smith perjury requests were drafted overnight by what aides called the Majority Staff Working Group on Avian-Named Franchises, a seven-member unit based in a Dirksen Senate Office Building conference room last used for the committee’s holiday party. Most run 11 pages. Recipients must produce ticketing records, parking receipts and concession transactions for Feb. 3, 2024, along with any seating chart on which a Row 1 appears.
“The senator established that it was the only NBA or NCAA men’s game in Atlanta,” said one Republican aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the working group has not been formally announced. “That leaves women’s games, games outside Atlanta and every sport that is not basketball. Nobody on this staff was comfortable leaving those unexamined. He wanted a bunch of questions answered. We sent 43 letters.”
Letters went first to the Atlanta Hawks and the Iowa Hawkeyes, then to the Seattle Seahawks, the Chicago Blackhawks and the University of Kansas, whose Jayhawk the aide described as “at least partly a hawk.” The Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles and Baltimore Ravens followed. No NFL team played on Feb. 3, 2024. “We are aware the Seahawks were not playing that night,” the aide said. “We are asking where they were.”
Jack Smith Perjury Inquiry Reaches the Stanford Cardinal
The list also includes the Toledo Mud Hens, a minor league baseball club, and the Stanford Cardinal. “Our position is that a color can be a bird,” the aide said. “Stanford is going to have to show us otherwise.” Asked why the Hawkeyes remained on the list, the aide pointed to Iowa’s mascot, a hawk named Herky. “That is why they are on it, and that is why they are staying on it.” Iowa’s letter runs 19 pages.
State Farm Arena received a separate letter asking it to explain why section 109 uses letters. The minority had not been consulted, a Democratic committee aide said, and learned of the requests when the University of Oregon called to ask whether a duck counted. A second Republican aide confirmed that it does.
Referrals to the Right People
In his opening statement Tuesday, Smith told the committee, “I myself have been threatened with jail by the President of the United States.” He said he would “not be silenced by the continued threats of prosecution from the President or others,” as quoted by the historian Heather Cox Richardson.
Discrepancies found in the Jack Smith perjury inquiry will go to the Justice Department, the first Republican aide said. Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested in testimony to Congress in July that the department would investigate whether Smith had lied to lawmakers, according to the Times. Before joining the department, Blanche represented the president in both of the cases Smith brought, the Associated Press reported. Walt Nauta, who was charged alongside the president in the classified documents case, is now the director of Oval Office operations, Richardson noted. “The attorney general knows these cases better than anyone,” the aide said. “He was there for both of them.”
Last week the department’s acting deputy attorney general cited one former Utah mail carrier, accused of throwing about 300 ballots into a dumpster, to defend a Postal Service rule two federal judges had blocked, as Newswax reported. The Supreme Court declined this month to let the administration enforce it.
Turtles Outside Jurisdiction
Newscasters who reviewed game footage later found Smith in the stands in College Park, Richardson wrote. The University of Maryland, which hosted the Hawkeyes that night, has not received a request. Its teams are the Terrapins. “Turtles are outside the working group’s jurisdiction,” the first aide said. “We have Iowa’s side.”
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