A U.S. senator’s “Forrest Gump” moment: Cannot tell difference between “Hawks” and “Hawkeyes”

A U.S. senator's look when he realizes his faux pas

Americans can find a significant difference between Eric Schmitt and Forrest Gump. For instance, one is a lovable, albeit intellectually-challenged young man. The other has just demonstrated that he is very similar to a fictional character played by Tom Hanks who often appeared to be clueless.

And, one is a fictional character played by Tom Hanks, one in which he won an Oscar in 1995, and the other was hoping that a great performance on national TV in 2026 would propel him to the nomination for vice president of the United States.

That person, a United States senator, committed perhaps the worst political blunder in the history of that august body and has thrown him into the same type of ridicule that Forrest faced in his fictional life.

Here is how a senator from Missouri became a laughingstock because he tried to nail a former special prosecutor but could not tell the difference between a “Hawk” and a “Hawkeye.”

Background

Eric Schmitt is a U.S. senator from Missouri who had ostensibly been the attorney general in that state. How he could have made such a faux pas is incredible, and he still does not acknowledge his complicity in what one person called on what used to be called Twitter as an action “that interns will hear about as a cautionary tale on their first day of work on June 1, 2047.”

In short, he made an error that will follow him for the rest of his miserable life.

It started with a conspiracy theory that his political party is famous for going back to the Willie Horton days of 1988. And his facial reaction has been compared to the fictional sitcom of a group of buffoons on “The Office.”

And, of course, who can forget the Academy Award winning character Forrest Gump.

To understand this, you need to understand that he was attempting to take down a very astute lawyer named Jack Smith who had successfully filed criminal indictments against Donald Trump after he left office in 2021.

Schmitt thought that he had nailed Smith with a perjury charge — actually said he was guilty of perjury, which certainly turned out to the slanderous — but the research that he and his staff had concocted turned out to be false — big time. A photo on X confirmed that what Schmitt alleged to be true never happened.

It even led to a viral moment by a fellow Republican senator from Alabama when she realized that they had made a major faux pas [I never use that other F-word that is now ubiquitous].

Photo of Katie Britt

A U.S. senator who realizes the horrible lie that was exposed

Here is a little about the man who was being attacked by Schmitt — and who proved that he and his staff had made a faux pas.

Special Counsel Jack Smith

The first Forrest Gump error that Schmitt made was that he tried to battle someone of a higher intellectual level that he is. Jack Smith graduated summa cum laude from the SUNY-Oneonta in 1991 and followed that with a Juris Doctorate with honors from Harvard Law School in 1994.

Schmitt does have a law degree, but the Harvard degree is a little more prestigious than his B.A. from Truman State and his law degree from St. Louis University. In fact, St. Louis may be trying to distance him after this horrible legal error.

Jack Smith was appointed as a special counsel in 2022 by then attorney general Merrick Garland with the task of investigating his criminal involvement in the Jan. 6 overthrow attempt of the election of 2020 in which Joe Biden became president, as well as his removal of classified documents from the federal government after he lost the election.

The documents case resulted in a 37-count indictment and the Jan. 6 in a four-count indictment, both in 2023. In the hearing on Sept. 29, Smith made clear that the indictments before two different grand juries were legally solid and that he would do it again, stating that the rule of law is under attack,

Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation … As I appear before you today, it is my belief that the rule of law faces challenges unlike any we have experienced in our lifetime. I will not be silenced by continued threats of prosecution from the president or others.”

Washington Post, Sept. 30, 2026

Schmitt buffoonery

Angry about his actions in indicting Trump, Schmitt and others attempted to denigrate the actions of Smith, who held strong to his beliefs. However, Schmitt engaged in a Republican conspiracy theory that fell flat on his face and embarrassed him immensely,

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Missouri's junior GOP senator grilled former special counsel Jack Smith about whether Smith had gone to an NBA game on Feb. 3, 2024, in Atlanta between the home team Hawks and the Golden State Warriors.

The importance of that date and place was due to Smith's former role in investigating President Trump, a probe that was instigated by Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis. The game was played the day after Willis announced she had an affair with another prosecutor on her team.

During questioning from Schmitt, Smith told the senator he had not attended the Hawks-Warriors game.

Schmitt then shot back: "What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta, at a Warriors-Hawks game on Feb. 3, 2024?"

Omaha World-Herald, Sept. 29

Smith was baffled by the question and said that he had not been in Atlanta on that date.

After more discussion, he stated that he recalled another game that he had attended,

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 tried to connect the NBA game Smith did not attend in Atlanta to Feb. 2, 2024 — the date Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney who was 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.

Politico Sept. 29, 2016

Schmitt was then ripped by a fellow senator and then online by tens of millions,

At the end of the hearing, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Schmitt should have looked at the texts more carefully and owed Smith an apology.

"I think people should have their facts straight before they accuse someone of being a dirtbag," Klobuchar said.

Omaha World-Herald, Sept. 29

Indeed, this became a national Forrest Gump moment for a man who was working hard to be considered as a vice-presidential nominee in 2028, according to the Trump-friendly Axios outlet.

For an attorney to make such a faux pas is terribly embarrassing — even for Forrest Gump.

For a U.S. senator to do so ... well, make your own judgment.

Tom Hanks won an Oscar for this portrayal of Forrest Gump