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The Bulwark’s October 1, 2026, episode features Sarah Longwell and Andrew Weissmann discussing former special counsel Jack Smith’s Senate testimony. Its public description highlights Republican questions about the Trump cases and Senator Eric Schmitt’s failed basketball “gotcha.” It does not establish which moment Weissmann himself identifies as the “biggest tell,” so that phrase should not be treated as a verified quote or a definitive answer from him.
What is the episode about?
The Bulwark describes the conversation as a discussion of “Jack Smith’s latest Senate testimony,” including “the questions Republicans didn’t ask about the actual cases against Trump” and “the Eric Schmitt gotcha that blew up in spectacular fashion.” Those are the publisher’s descriptions of the episode, not verified verbatim remarks by Weissmann. The episode page presents it as a free preview of paid content and promotes Bulwark+; see The Bulwark episode page.
What happened at the Senate hearing?
The Senate Judiciary Committee held its oversight hearing on September 29, 2026. The official title was “Oversight of Jack Smith’s Abuse of Authority and the Targeting of Republicans and Related Matters.” The committee’s hearing page lists the official materials.
The hearing revisited Smith’s two federal investigations involving Donald Trump: the effort to overturn the 2020 election and the retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The Associated Press reported that Republicans sought to portray Smith as a political operative, while Democrats elicited testimony about the factual and legal basis of the investigations. Those are descriptions of the parties’ arguments and the hearing’s political framing, not findings by the committee or a court. See the Associated Press report.
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Why did the Schmitt basketball exchange stand out?
Senator Eric Schmitt asked Smith whether he had attended an Atlanta Hawks game on February 3, 2024. Smith said he did not think he had visited Atlanta while serving as special prosecutor and recalled attending a University of Iowa women’s game at Maryland that day. Senator Amy Klobuchar pointed out that Iowa’s team is the Hawkeyes. The AP described the exchange as an apparent Hawks-versus-Hawkeyes confusion that undercut the effort to connect Smith to the Georgia investigation.
That exchange is a conspicuous moment in the public descriptions of the hearing and the Bulwark episode. It does not, on its own, settle the factual or legal questions in Smith’s investigations.
Does the public description name Weissmann’s “biggest tell”?
No. The Bulwark’s public episode description promotes the topic and highlights Schmitt’s exchange, but it does not identify a specific moment as Weissmann’s own “biggest tell.” The episode is presented as a free preview of paid content; without a verified audio passage or transcript, attributing a precise answer or direct quote to him would go beyond what the public description establishes.
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How to read the hearing’s competing frames
The title and public description point to a contrast between scrutiny of Smith’s conduct and examination of the cases themselves. The Senate committee page establishes the hearing’s date, official title, and materials; AP provides reported examples and characterizations of the partisan arguments. Neither the episode description nor those reported details constitute a complete senator-by-senator transcript analysis.
Quick Recap
- Conduct: Republicans criticized Smith and his actions, with the hearing framed by its title around alleged abuse of authority and targeting Republicans.
- Case record: Democrats focused on the factual and legal basis for the Trump investigations, as AP reported.
- Interpretation: The basketball exchange became a notable moment, but its prominence is distinct from establishing what Weissmann privately or specifically called the hearing’s biggest tell.
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