USA TODAY is reporting that a Senate hearing featuring former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith took an unexpected turn when Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, questioned Smith about attending a February 2024 professional basketball game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks. It said Schmitt, who called Smith a "dirtbag," suggested Smith could have met there with Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, about her separate election interference case against President Donald Trump.
USA TODAY said Smith responded that he had not attended an Atlanta Hawks game but recalled going to a University of Maryland basketball game around that time, when Caitlin Clark was playing her senior season for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes. It said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, remarked that people should have their facts straight before accusing someone of being a dirtbag and getting the teams wrong. USA TODAY said the mix-up was an awkward moment for Schmitt, a former college athlete who helped lead the Senate's passage of a major college athletics overhaul the previous night. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, it said.
Separately, USA TODAY is reporting that taxpayer-funded Trump television ads that drew widespread attention were paid for with money from Customs and Border Protection. It said the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee stated in separate remarks that the ads were funded through One Big, Beautiful Bill Act money, though the Budget Committee holds oversight of those reconciliation funds. USA TODAY said Senate Republicans had already expressed unease about the administration using taxpayer dollars for campaign-style ads, noting Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he liked the message but believed it should not be paid for with taxpayer dollars.
USA TODAY also is reporting that the Supreme Court, for the third time, backed the Trump administration's efforts to deport migrants to countries other than their own without giving them a chance to show they could be persecuted or tortured there. It said the court paused a federal judge's decision holding that the administration's policy, a key tool in President Trump's deportation crackdown, is unlawful.