Eric Schmitt — U.S. Senator (R-MO); Former Missouri Attorney General
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Eric Schmitt — U.S. Senator (R-MO); Former Missouri Attorney General

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Eric Schmitt — U.S. Senator (R-MO); Former Missouri Attorney General

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Category: Federal legislator (U.S. Senate), Republican; former statewide elected official (Missouri Attorney General) Role: U.S. Senator from Missouri since January 3, 2023; Senate Judiciary Committee member and chair of its Subcommittee on the Constitution; Missouri Attorney General January 2019 — January 2023 Priority: P2 (as attorney general he led a 17-state amicus brief and joined a six-state motion to intervene supporting Texas v. Pennsylvania, the December 2020 suit to invalidate four states’ certified presidential results; as a senator he pressed DOJ in 2026 to act against majority-minority congressional districts. Both were pursued through courts and official channels; no court sanction, ethics finding or Democratic Malice designation applies on the evidence reviewed.)

Role

Schmitt, a Republican, has represented Missouri in the U.S. Senate since January 2023 and is next on the ballot in 2028. He serves on the Judiciary, Armed Services and Commerce committees and, as of 2026, chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, the panel with jurisdiction over voting-rights and redistricting questions (Missouri Independent via KCUR, May 20, 2026; Schmitt Senate biography). He matters for accountability tracking because he used a statewide law-enforcement office to back litigation against other states’ 2020 presidential results, and because he now uses a Senate gavel to press the Justice Department on voting maps.

Background

Schmitt was born in Bridgeton, Missouri, earned a political science degree from Truman State University (1997) and a law degree from Saint Louis University (2000), and served as a Glendale alderman (2005–2008), a Missouri state senator (2009–2017) and Missouri State Treasurer (2017–2019) (Wikipedia; Schmitt Senate biography). Gov. Mike Parson appointed him attorney general in January 2019 to succeed Josh Hawley; he won a full term in 2020 and resigned on taking his Senate seat in January 2023 (Wikipedia). He won the August 2022 Republican Senate primary with 45.6% of the vote, in a race in which Donald Trump endorsed “ERIC” in a statement both Schmitt and Eric Greitens claimed, and the November 2022 general election with 55.4% over Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine (Wikipedia; Ballotpedia). He was vice chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) in January 2021 (Missouri Independent; The Missouri Times).

Basis for Inclusion Subject classification: Public Official — Elected (U.S. Senator; former Missouri Attorney General, appointed 2019 and elected 2020) Role at time of documented conduct: Missouri Attorney General, January 2019 — January 2023 (2020 election litigation, wrongful-conviction cases, Missouri v. Biden); U.S. Senator and Chair, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, 2023 — present (SAVE America Act amendment, DOJ letter and hearing on majority-minority districts, September 2026 hearing) This profile documents conduct in an official public capacity. Public officials are subject to accountability review for actions taken in their official roles. This profile does not document private conduct unrelated to official duties. Because he is a sitting elected official, the private-citizen Non-Speech Anchor test (standards §5A) does not apply; as a conservative check, stripping all speeches, interviews and social-media material still leaves the December 2020 Supreme Court filings, the wrongful-conviction litigation, Missouri v. Biden, his Senate votes and amendment, and his official letter to DOJ. What is NOT the basis for inclusion: His party, his conservative policy positions, his votes as such, his speeches and his statements in hearings. Protected speech note: Statements and public positions documented in this profile are included as factual context. Expressions of political opinion, even where contested or factually disputed, are protected speech and are not independently the basis for inclusion in this profile. Where speech is documented, it is to provide context for documented actions or to record the official’s own statements about documented conduct. His September 2025 National Conservatism Conference speech is assessed only under the separate Dangerous Rhetoric Assessment below, and provisionally.

Democratic Malice Assessment

Designation: None

Ideology vs. Malice determination: Schmitt’s documented official actions were pursued through courts, legislation, committee hearings and letters to the executive branch. His Senate conduct — votes, a substitute amendment, a letter to DOJ and a subcommittee hearing on voting maps — falls inside the Ideology Safe Harbor (legislation through normal process; policy advocacy through public argument; oversight through official channels), however consequential its aims for minority representation or mail voting. The one action that reaches the borderline zone is his December 2020 support, as attorney general, for Texas v. Pennsylvania. It was tested against the five distinguishing factors below rather than assumed either way. Two of five are met; the borderline test requires three. It therefore does not tip to malice, and no action is scored.

Gate Test: the 2020 election litigation (December 9–11, 2020)

Boundary test: Could an attorney general who believed the four states’ pandemic-era election changes were unlawful pursue that view through legitimate means? Yes — by litigating the rules in the states’ own courts before the election, or by supporting legislative change. The question is whether asking the Supreme Court to set aside certified results after the vote crossed from that path into subversion.

Factor Met? Basis
1. Process subversion No Both filings used the Supreme Court’s original-jurisdiction process, the forum the Constitution provides for suits between states. The Court disposed of them in two days. No filing bypassed a court, a certification body or a transparency requirement.
2. Targeted asymmetry Yes The relief the amicus brief and the motion to intervene supported would have invalidated the certified presidential results of four states won by the opposing candidate, discounting the lawfully cast votes of their electorates.
3. Expert rejection Yes Before the filings, the Justice Department and the FBI had said they had found no evidence of fraud on a scale that would change the result, and most legal experts said the suit had no merit (Missouri Independent, December 11, 2020). Schmitt proceeded.
4. Pattern context No (close) The Missouri Independent called the Texas brief “the second time” he had joined a long-shot 2020 election suit. The earlier filing, retrieved from the Supreme Court docket, is the “Brief amici curiae of State of Missouri, et al.” in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Degraffenreid (formerly v. Boockvar), No. 20-542, filed November 9, 2020 — six days after the election, not before it as an earlier version of this assessment assumed. That case challenged the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s September 17, 2020 extension of the mail-ballot receipt deadline; by the time Missouri filed, Justice Alito had ordered the ballots arriving after Election Day segregated and counted separately (November 6, 2020), and the Court denied review on February 22, 2021 over dissents by Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch. The relief at stake was those segregated late ballots, not a state’s certified result, and three justices would have heard the question, so it remains an election-rules dispute rather than an attack on certification. The December brief and motion were one effort within one week. No later act of his attacking certification or electoral machinery is documented: he was not in Congress for the January 6, 2021 count, and his 2026 conduct sits in the Safe Harbor. The post-election timing makes this the closest factor in the test: an editor who reads the November and December filings as one post-election campaign against four states’ results would reach three factors and tip to malice. This assessment does not, because the November brief sought review of a rule affecting a set of segregated ballots, and the Missouri brief’s text has not been retrieved to show it asked for more (see Open research leads). Editor review requested on this factor.
5. Accountability avoidance No No documented act undermined a court, inspector general, investigator or other mechanism able to review his conduct.

Classification: Borderline, not tipped (2 of 5). Ideology for DMA purposes. The ideological version of the goal would be challenging state election-rule changes in those states’ courts before the election, or supporting legislation to change them.

RAGA robocall (January 5, 2021) — not scored. The Rule of Law Defense Fund, the 501(c)(4) arm of RAGA, of which Schmitt was vice chairman, sent a robocall urging supporters to “march to the Capitol” and “call on Congress to stop the steal.” His spokesman said he “absolutely had no knowledge of or involvement in the robocall” and condemned the violence; the fund’s incoming chair, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, called the staff decisions “unauthorized” (Missouri Independent; The Missouri Times). No documented act by Schmitt connects him to the call. A leadership title in an association is not an action.

Framework note: The Democratic Malice Assessment evaluates subversion of democratic mechanisms themselves, not policy disagreement. Holding conservative, populist, or nationalist policy positions — even extreme ones — within constitutional process is ideology, not malice.

Framework disclosure: This Democratic Malice Assessment applies a published analytical framework to documented public actions by public officials. All factual predicates are cited to primary or secondary sources. This assessment is subject to update as new evidence emerges or prior evidence is corrected.

Legal Disclaimer

The Democratic Malice Assessment is an analytical framework applying defined criteria to documented public conduct. Designations are evaluative conclusions, not statements of criminal guilt. No DMS score constitutes a finding of criminal liability. The factual predicates are cited to primary sources; the evaluative conclusions are protected expression. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and its progeny apply to this assessment of a public figure’s public conduct.

Dangerous Rhetoric Assessment

Rigor tier: Standard (provisional) · Max supported claim rung: 1

Comparative baseline: Not yet run. The bipartisan same-genre comparison against dangerous-rhetoric-comparison-baseline and the single human reviewer required at the Standard tier are both pending, so the score below is provisional and no comparative band is asserted. Scores are a signal, not proof.

Construct Score Target class Highest-scored span
Dehumanization (DS) Not scored — No span passed the gate
Targeting/Exclusion (TE) 2 (provisional, capped) T1 NatCon speech, “It belongs to us” passage
Incitement-Risk (IR) Not scored — No span passed the gate

Scored Passage 1: “What Is an American?” (TE)

Construct(s): TE · Score: 2 (provisional; capped at 2 because the verbatim spans were confirmed through secondary outlets, not a retrieved primary transcript) · Target class: T1 (descent/ethnicity)

SourceRemarks as prepared and delivered at the fifth National Conservatism Conference; the quoted spans were reproduced consistently by Wikipedia, Slate, The New Republic and the Missouri Independent, and the Associated Press report of the conference quoted the line as “America doesn’t belong to them — it belongs to us.” The Daily Signal’s copy of the prepared remarks could not be fetched directly (HTTP 403, retried 2026-10-15). Retrieval: 2026-09-29; AP corroboration added 2026-10-15.Statement: Settlers “believed they were forging a nation–a homeland for themselves and their descendants”; America “belongs to us. It’s our birthright, our heritage, our destiny”; and “America does not belong to them.” (National Conservatism Conference, Washington, September 2, 2025)

Determination: The passage frames national belonging by ancestry from settlers (“descendants,” “birthright,” “heritage”) and contrasts “us” with an unspecified “them.” That is the descent-based membership marker the Targeting/Exclusion gate looks for. Alternatives considered: R2 (lawful policy advocacy) — the same speech also argues for changes to legal immigration and visa programs such as H-1B, which is policy advocacy and is not scored; R4 (heritage or religious tradition language) — partly applies to the Christian-settler framing; R5 (hyperbole) — does not neutralize the descent framing. Because “them” is not defined in the quoted text (Slate reads it as critics of Confederate monuments and, by implication, non-descendants), the score is held at 2. Commentators including Slate’s and The Guardian’s writers characterized the speech as white-nationalist; that is their characterization, not a finding made here. Schmitt’s office did not respond to press inquiries about the speech in the sources reviewed, and no response from him explaining or disputing that characterization was located.

What Is NOT Scored

  • September 29, 2026 hearing remarks to Jack Smith, including calling him a “dirtbag” and telling him not to “perjure yourself” (CNN; MS NOW). This is a sharp partisan attack on a political-conflict target (T2/T4) and is safe-harbor adversarial politics. His factual premise (that Smith attended an Atlanta NBA game) was disputed the same day; that is a veracity issue, not a rhetoric score. His post-hearing repetition (“He’s a total dirtbag,” quoted in the October 7, 2026 Democratic letter) is the same attack on the same target and is not scored either.
  • October 22, 2026 remarks to Fox News Digital that unrest in France is “exactly what they want here, the DSA Democrats” and that “the Democrat Party at this point is sort of post-American and anti-Western civilization.” The target is the opposing party (T2), there is no descent marker or call to action, and campaign-season attacks on a party are safe-harbor adversarial politics.
  • May 19, 2026 subcommittee statement that certain maps “do not become constitutional because they’re already in use” is lawful policy advocacy about redistricting.
  • Immigration-policy proposals in the NatCon speech (visa programs, wages) are policy advocacy.
  • Statements on Ukraine, Snowden and other topics reported by Wikipedia are ordinary political commentary and were not retrieved as primary text.

Assessment Basis

Standard tier evaluates public, attributable rhetoric only; scores are evaluative judgments about the quoted text. The bipartisan comparison band is ordinal, not a rate. The Standard tier requires one human reviewer, who has not yet reviewed this assessment. No fascist-rhetorical-structure finding is made at the per-speech level.

Legal Disclaimer

The Dangerous Rhetoric Assessment applies a published analytical framework to documented, public statements by a public figure. The Dehumanization, Targeting, and Incitement-Risk scores are evaluative judgments about the quoted text — not statements of criminal guilt, not findings that the speech is legally unprotected, and not claims that any statement caused or will cause a specific act of violence. Nothing here asserts incitement in the legal sense: Brandenburg v. Ohio places that bar at speech directed to and likely to produce imminent lawless action, and these scores sit well below it. Each score cites its verbatim source quote; the factual predicates are the quotations, and the evaluative conclusions are protected expression (Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co.). New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and its progeny apply to this assessment of a public figure’s public statements. This assessment is subject to update as new evidence emerges or prior evidence is corrected.

Documented Actions

1. Led a 17-state amicus brief and joined a six-state motion to intervene in Texas v. Pennsylvania (December 8–11, 2020)

SourceSupreme Court of the United States, Brief of the State of Missouri and 16 Other States as Amici Curiae, Texas v. Pennsylvania, No. 22O155, December 9, 2020 (Source 1); Supreme Court, Motion to Intervene and Proposed Bill of Complaint, No. 22O155, December 10, 2020 (Source 2); Supreme Court, Order in Pending Case 22O155, December 11, 2020 (Source 3); Missouri Independent, “Supreme Court rejects lawsuit backed by Missouri AG Schmitt trying to overturn presidential election,” December 11, 2020 (Source 4); Supreme Court of the United States, docket No. 20-542, Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Degraffenreid, retrieved October 25, 2026 (Source 38).Evidence: As Missouri Attorney General, Schmitt announced on December 8, 2020 that he would “help lead the effort in support of Texas’ #SCOTUS filing.” On December 9 he filed the Brief of the State of Missouri and 16 Other States as Amici Curiae, urging the Supreme Court to grant Texas leave to file a bill of complaint against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. The joining states were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia. The brief argued that changes to election rules must come from state legislatures, that the four states had abolished safeguards against mail-ballot fraud, and that DOJ’s election-crimes manual identifies close, competitive jurisdictions as conditions where fraud is most likely. On December 10, Missouri was one of six states (with Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah) that moved to intervene as plaintiffs, asking to join Texas’s complaint as modified by proposed intervenor Donald J. Trump if the Court granted leave. The Texas suit, brought by then-Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, sought to invalidate the four states’ presidential results. On December 11 the Court denied leave to file — “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections” — and dismissed all other pending motions, including the intervention motion, as moot. The Missouri Independent reported that this was the second 2020 election suit Schmitt had joined. The earlier one is on the Supreme Court docket as a “Brief amici curiae of State of Missouri, et al.” filed November 9, 2020 in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Degraffenreid (formerly v. Boockvar), No. 20-542, the challenge to Pennsylvania’s three-day extension of the mail-ballot receipt deadline; the docket lists D. John Sauer as Missouri’s counsel of record. The Court denied review on February 22, 2021.

Court record: Texas v. Pennsylvania, Supreme Court of the United States (original jurisdiction), No. 22O155; motion for leave to file bill of complaint denied and all other pending motions dismissed as moot, December 11, 2020. Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Degraffenreid, Supreme Court of the United States, No. 20-542; Missouri et al. amicus brief filed November 9, 2020; certiorari denied February 22, 2021.

Pattern: Use of a statewide office to support litigation seeking to set aside certified election results in other states. Tested under the DMA gate above: borderline, 2 of 5 factors, not tipped.

2. Opposed local prosecutors’ innocence motions for Kevin Strickland and Lamar Johnson (2019–2022)

SourceDeath Penalty Information Center, “Kevin Strickland Exonerated 42 Years After Wrongful Capital Murder Conviction in Missouri,” November 24, 2021 (Source 9); Missouri Independent, “Roadblocks facing Kevin Strickland’s innocence claim nothing new for Missouri,” September 3, 2021 (Source 10); Missouri Independent, “Lamar Johnson to be set free after decades in Missouri prison for murder he didn’t commit,” February 14, 2023 (Source 11); Midwest Innocence Project, Lamar Johnson press release, February 14, 2023 (advocate source; Source 12); Wikipedia, “Eric Schmitt” (Source 16).Evidence: Missouri passed a law in 2021 allowing local prosecutors to move to vacate convictions they believe wrongful. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker filed the first such motion, for Kevin Strickland, who had served more than 42 years for a 1978 triple murder; she asked Schmitt’s office to join her. The attorney general’s office instead opposed the motion, calling Strickland’s evidence “hearsay upon hearsay upon hearsay,” and moved to limit the evidence the court could consider, to remove Strickland as a party and to replace the local prosecutor as the state’s representative. The court rejected those motions, and Judge James Welsh freed Strickland on November 23, 2021, finding clear and convincing evidence that undermined the conviction (Death Penalty Information Center; Missouri Independent). In the case of Lamar Johnson, convicted in 1995, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner sought relief from 2019; the attorney general’s office opposed his release while Schmitt led it, and Johnson’s advocates at the Midwest Innocence Project say it fought every effort to secure him a hearing. Judge David Mason vacated Johnson’s conviction on February 14, 2023, six weeks after Schmitt left office (Missouri Independent; Midwest Innocence Project). In the Strickland hearing the office said affirming the conviction was necessary to defend “the rule of law” (Death Penalty Information Center), and it argued that the attorney general’s role in such proceedings is an adversarial check on local prosecutors (Wikipedia).

Pattern: Contested exercise of attorney-general authority against local prosecutors’ innocence findings. Both men were later freed by courts. No misconduct finding against the office is documented; this is an official-capacity litigation position, not a democratic-mechanism action, and is not scored.

3. Other attorney-general litigation (2019–2022)

SourceWikipedia, “Eric Schmitt” (Source 16). The underlying dockets were not retrieved in this pass; see Open research leads.Evidence: As attorney general Schmitt filed 25 lawsuits against the Biden administration in a 20-month span, second only to Louisiana among state attorneys general. He sued local governments over COVID-19 mask mandates, sued the government of China in 2020 over the pandemic (dismissed in July 2022 on sovereign-immunity grounds), and took the position that Missouri need not fund the Medicaid expansion voters approved by ballot measure in 2020; the Missouri Supreme Court rejected that position in 2021.

Pattern: Aggressive use of state litigation authority. The Medicaid-expansion position bears on a voter-approved measure, but it was litigated and resolved by the state’s highest court; ideology by the DMA gate.

4. Missouri v. Biden / Murthy v. Missouri (2022–2024)

SourceSupreme Court of the United States, Murthy v. Missouri, No. 23-411, June 26, 2024 (Source 13); MLFA, “SCOTUS Unpacked: Murthy v. Missouri Evades Ruling on Potential Government Censorship” (Source 14); Senator Schmitt, “Statement on Murthy v. Missouri Ruling,” June 26, 2024 (Source 15).Evidence: Schmitt, as attorney general, filed suit in 2022 alleging that Biden administration officials pressured social-media companies to suppress speech. On June 26, 2024 the Supreme Court held 6-3 in Murthy v. Missouri that the plaintiffs lacked standing to obtain an injunction and did not reach the merits of the coercion claim. Schmitt, by then a senator, called the ruling “not the outcome we were hoping for” and said the case had exposed a “censorship enterprise.”

Court record: Murthy v. Missouri, Supreme Court of the United States, No. 23-411; reversed and remanded for lack of standing, June 26, 2024.

Pattern: Conservative litigation strategy through federal courts. Ideology.

5. Elected to the U.S. Senate (November 8, 2022)

SourceWikipedia, “Eric Schmitt” (Source 16); Ballotpedia, “Eric Schmitt” (Source 17).Evidence: Schmitt won the seat vacated by Roy Blunt with 55.4% of the vote, campaigning on his litigation against the Biden administration and tying himself to Trump. He took office January 3, 2023.

Pattern: Baseline fact.

6. Voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (July 1, 2025)

SourceU.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote No. 372, “On Passage of the Bill (H.R. 1, as Amended),” July 1, 2025 (Source 19); KOMU, “Both US senators for Missouri voted for Big Beautiful Bill” (Source 20); KSHB, “All 4 Kansas, Missouri senators vote to pass ‘Big Beautiful Bill'” (Source 21).Evidence: Schmitt voted for passage of H.R. 1 as amended; the Senate passed it 51-50 with the Vice President breaking the tie (roll call vote No. 372, 119th Congress, 1st session). Both Missouri senators voted yes. Schmitt said the bill would prevent a large tax increase and defended a Medicaid provision he authored.

Pattern: Ordinary legislative vote through regular reconciliation procedure. Ideology Safe Harbor.

7. National Conservatism Conference speech (September 2, 2025)

SourceAssociated Press via WSLS, “National conservatism asserts its dominance in Trump’s Washington,” September 5, 2025 (Source 25); Slate, September 2025 (Source 22); The New Republic, September 2025 (Source 23); Missouri Independent, October 17, 2025 (Source 24); Wikipedia (Source 16).Evidence: Schmitt delivered a speech titled “What Is an American?” arguing that America is “not a universal nation” and describing the country as the heritage of settler descendants. His staffer Nate Hochman, previously dismissed from Ron DeSantis’s 2024 campaign after producing a video that used an image associated with neo-Nazis, promoted the speech on social media; The Guardian asked whether Hochman helped write it and Schmitt’s office did not reply (Wikipedia). Commentators, including Ed Kilgore, David Corn and Jason Wilson, described the speech in terms such as “blood and soil” and white nationalism; the speech’s own stated theme is a defense of national identity and immigration restriction. See Dangerous Rhetoric Assessment, Passage 1.

Pattern: Protected political speech by a sitting senator; documented because it bears on immigration and citizenship policy. Not a basis for inclusion and not scored under the DMA.

8. SAVE America Act substitute amendment (March 2026) and Senate outcome (March–June 2026)

SourceSenator Schmitt, “Schmitt to Introduce Amendment to SAVE America Act Following Through on Trump Priorities” (Source 26); The Daily Signal, “Schmitt Leads Charge to Pack SAVE America Act With Conservative Wins,” March 18, 2026 (Source 27); FactCheck.org, “Q&A on the SAVE America Act,” March 2026 (Source 28); States Newsroom via Florida Phoenix, “US Senate blocks Trump’s SAVE America Act, thwarting restrictions on voting,” June 5, 2026 (Source 29); Congress.gov, S.Amdt.4420 to S.1383, 119th Congress (Source 39).Evidence: After the House passed the SAVE America Act on February 11, 2026, Schmitt announced he was drafting, with the White House, a substitute amendment that would require voters to show ID, require proof of citizenship, end mail-in balloting with exceptions for military service, illness, travel and disability, and add provisions on women’s sports and gender-transition surgeries for minors. The Daily Signal reported on March 18, 2026 that he was leading the effort to add those provisions as the Senate opened debate. FactCheck.org noted that the House-passed bill would not abolish mail voting and that eight states and D.C. conduct elections mostly by mail. The Senate did not pass the bill: after debate opened in March, in June 2026 the Senate rejected further Republican attempts to revive the bill, with Sens. Collins, McConnell, Murkowski and Tillis voting with Democrats against one of them. Congress.gov records the substitute as S.Amdt.4420, an amendment “in the nature of a substitute” sponsored by Schmitt and submitted and proposed on March 17, 2026 by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), offered to the House message on S.1383 (the Veterans Accessibility Advisory Committee Act of 2025, the legislative vehicle). Twenty-four amendments were filed to it; its latest recorded action is “Considered by Senate” on March 19, 2026. Whether it received a standalone roll call was not established from that record.

Pattern: Election-policy advocacy through the legislative process; ending mail balloting would affect voters in states that rely on it. Legislation through normal process is Ideology Safe Harbor.

9. Pressed DOJ to act against majority-minority districts (April 29 — May 19, 2026)

SourceMissouri Independent via KCUR, “Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt pushes for DOJ crackdown on majority-minority congressional districts,” May 20, 2026 (Source 30); Supreme Court of the United States, Louisiana v. Callais, No. 24-109, April 29, 2026 (Source 31).Evidence: After the Supreme Court’s April 29, 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais limited states’ use of race in drawing districts, Schmitt wrote to the Justice Department. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Civil Rights Division, replied on social media on April 30, “Senator — we are ON IT!” On May 19, 2026, chairing the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, he urged DOJ to act against states with maps drawn to protect majority-minority districts: “These maps do not become constitutional because they’re already in use. … The Department of Justice has an obligation to act.” Ranking member Peter Welch said the ruling leaves communities of color few enforceable tools against unfair maps and called for a federal ban on mid-decade redistricting and partisan gerrymandering. The Missouri Independent reported that 148 House districts drawn after the 2020 census, about a third, were majority-minority, and that Democrats held 122 of them as of 2024; some officials were already targeting Missouri’s 1st District.

Pattern: Use of a committee chair’s oversight role to press the executive branch for enforcement action on voting maps. Oversight through official channels is Ideology Safe Harbor; the civil-rights consequence is a reduction in minority-opportunity districts if DOJ and courts act on it.

10. Jack Smith hearing (September 29, 2026) and the dispute that followed (October 2026)

Evidence: At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with former special counsel Jack Smith, Schmitt, holding a poster board, asked whether Smith had been in Atlanta at a Warriors-Hawks game on February 3, 2024, the day after Fulton County prosecutors acknowledged a relationship, implying a link between Smith and Fani Willis. Smith said, “I definitely did not go to a Hawks game,” and Schmitt replied, “I think you’ve already perjured yourself.” Smith then recalled attending a women’s college basketball game in Maryland that night, Iowa against the University of Maryland, accompanied by the U.S. Marshals Service; he told the committee he went to see Iowa’s Caitlin Clark (MS NOW; The Hill). Reporters from CNN, MS NOW, the Washington Examiner and States Newsroom reported that Schmitt appeared to have confused the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes. Schmitt called Smith a “dirtbag” and later told the Charlie Kirk Show that Atlanta’s was “the only NBA or NCAA men’s game going on at that time in Atlanta” and that “my job is to ask the questions” (quoted in the committee Democrats’ letter, below).

The records came from the Justice Department. Committee Democrats describe them as texts between a counsel in the Special Counsel’s office and a U.S. Marshal, plus a readout of an August 17, 2024 call between Smith and DOJ’s Public Integrity Section that Sen. Josh Hawley also displayed. The Hill, which obtained the texts, reported that they cover a few exchanges on the night of February 3, 2024, about finding seats and meeting at halftime, and do not name a team. MS NOW reported, citing one source with direct knowledge, that Schmitt’s staff had asked Republican committee staff for material linking Smith’s investigation to Willis’s, received the texts, and was explicitly warned they were “unvetted” and that verifying them was its responsibility; that account rests on a single anonymous source, and neither Schmitt’s office nor DOJ responded to MS NOW. A Schmitt spokesperson told The Hill he “has never seen texts referencing Caitlin Clark” and would not have asked which game Smith attended had he received them.

SourceMS NOW, September 29, 2026 (Source 32); CNN via Channel 3000, September 29, 2026 (Source 33); Washington Examiner, September 29, 2026 (Source 34); Missouri Independent, “Eric Schmitt bungles accusation against former special counsel Jack Smith in heated hearing,” September 2026 (Source 35); States Newsroom via Michigan Advance, “US Senate Dems demand apology from Chuck Grassley to Jack Smith for attacks at hearing,” October 8, 2026 (Source 36); Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats, letter to Chairman Grassley re Republicans’ withholding of committee records, October 7, 2026 (Source 40); The Hill, “Durbin demands Schmitt records and an apology for Jack Smith,” October 8, 2026 (Source 41); Politico, “Democrats call on Chuck Grassley to apologize to Jack Smith for basketball gaffe,” October 8, 2026 (Source 42); MS NOW, “Eric Schmitt was warned about the Jack Smith texts. He used them anyway,” September 30, 2026 (single anonymous source; Source 43).In a letter dated October 7, 2026 and released October 8, all ten Judiciary Committee Democrats, led by Ranking Member Dick Durbin, told Chairman Chuck Grassley that withholding the records from the minority violated Senate Rules XXVI and XXVII, demanded the records, and asked Grassley to apologize to Smith on the committee’s behalf. The letter says “the texts established only that Senator Schmitt had not done the basic due diligence of verifying a document before relying on it” and that he “has since doubled down on his false assertions,” citing his post-hearing statement “He’s a total dirtbag.” Grassley spokesperson Clare Slattery rejected the request: “It’s Jack Smith who owes an apology to the thousands of Americans he and his staff ran roughshod over.” No apology, ethics complaint or rules finding is documented as of October 25, 2026.

Pattern: Public accusation of perjury against a witness on a premise multiple outlets found mistaken. Documented as a factual-accuracy issue about a senator’s statement; speech, so not scored under the DMA, and excluded from the DRA as adversarial politics. The withheld-records dispute is a committee-process question addressed to the chairman, not to Schmitt.

11. FEC letters questioning donations to his campaign committee (2026)

SourceRudi Keller, Missouri Independent, “FEC questions thousands of donations to Eric Schmitt tied to prolific online donors,” October 2, 2026 (Source 44). The FEC letters themselves (Requests for Additional Information) and the amended reports were not retrieved in this pass; see Open research leads.Evidence: The Federal Election Commission sent Schmitt’s campaign committee three letters in 2026 about donations that appeared to exceed federal limits and other problems in his reports, the Missouri Independent reported on October 2, 2026. The letters flagged 13 donors, none from Missouri and none of whom gave to his 2022 campaign; together they appear almost 5,700 times in his FEC reports, for $85,672 net of later negative entries, with individual totals ranging from just over the $3,500 per-election limit to more than $10,500. One Texas donor with no federal contributions before December 2023 appears 1,011 times in his reports and 126,739 times in FEC records overall. The first letter listed 10 contributors with at least 20 donations during 2025, the second (after the first-quarter report) seven donors and the third (after the second-quarter report) 10 donors, most of them repeats. Campaign treasurer Janna Rutland answered the first letter that “a software error caused donor information to be mismatched, which resulted in reporting errors,” and said an amended report made “any necessary reattributions, redesignations, or refunds”; she sent similar responses to the later letters. The campaign did not respond to the Independent. The letters are staff requests for correction or explanation and do not establish a violation by the campaign or any donor; former FEC chairman Bradley Smith told the Independent, “It does not mean there’s been a violation of the law,” while adding that the volume tied to one donor “should raise questions.” The Independent reported that Sen. Josh Hawley and Reps. Eric Burlison, Jason Smith and Ann Wagner received numerous contributions from some of the same donors. Schmitt has raised $4.3 million since the start of 2025 for 2028.

Pattern: Campaign-finance compliance inquiry, unresolved on the public record. Not a democratic-mechanism action and not scored; documented because an unanswered FEC inquiry is an open accountability item.

12. Operation Show Me Justice, St. Louis (concluded October 15, 2026)

SourceWKNO / PBS NewsHour, “DOJ and Missouri Sen. Schmitt hold news conference on violent crime reduction,” October 15, 2026 (Source 45); Fox News Digital via New York Post, “France in flames is preview of what ‘DSA’ Democrats want for US, senator warns,” October 22, 2026 (Source 46). The DOJ release with the operation’s figures was not retrieved.Evidence: Schmitt appeared with Justice Department officials at an October 15, 2026 news conference on violent-crime reduction (PBS NewsHour livestream, carried by WKNO). According to the Justice Department, as reported by Fox News Digital, Operation Show Me Justice was an ATF-led enforcement surge in St. Louis that ended October 15 with 435 arrests and the seizure of 166 firearms, 81 kilograms of drugs and more than $1.25 million. Schmitt said he had asked administration officials, “St. Louis, we need your help,” and that “This isn’t a one-and-done deal. There are more resources coming.”

Pattern: Constituent advocacy for federal law-enforcement resources. Baseline fact; Ideology Safe Harbor.

Pattern Analysis

Cross-References

Schmitt’s record runs on two tracks. As attorney general he used litigation aggressively — against the Biden administration, against local prosecutors’ innocence findings, and, in December 2020, in support of an effort to set aside four states’ presidential results. As a senator he has pursued election policy (proof of citizenship, ending most mail voting) and voting-map enforcement through legislation and oversight. The common thread is a preference for using official legal and legislative tools against election rules and districts that favor the other party; on the evidence reviewed, every step used a sanctioned channel.

Related profiles:

Related topics: SAVE Act Primer (SAVE America Act background); 2026 Election Defense Playbook: Missouri (Missouri election-defense context).

Related skills: patriot-voting-research (voting-law context), dangerous-rhetoric-assessment (the provisional DRA), malice-evaluator (the gate test above)

Severity Assessment

Immediate harm: Moderate (potential, not realized). The 2020 suit was rejected in two days; the SAVE America Act stalled in the Senate; what DOJ did after his April 2026 letter is not documented. If DOJ and courts act on his 2026 push, the number of districts held by minority-preferred candidates would fall. Democratic erosion: Moderate. Using a state attorney general’s office to back the invalidation of other states’ certified results is a documented norm breach, rejected by the Court; the 2026 voting-map push is lawful advocacy whose stated aim is to shrink majority-minority districts. Authoritarian marker: Low. Markers on the evidence are rhetorical rather than conduct-based: a descent-based framing of national belonging in a 2025 speech (provisionally scored) and an unsupported perjury accusation against a witness in a 2026 hearing. No documented act defied a court, purged voters, or attacked an accountability mechanism.

Uncertainty: whether his SAVE substitute (S.Amdt.4420) received a roll call, the text of Missouri’s November 9, 2020 Boockvar amicus brief, DOJ’s follow-through on the April 2026 letter, and the FEC letters and amended reports have not been retrieved. The September 29, 2026 texts are now described by The Hill, which obtained them, and by committee Democrats, but have not been published in full.

Accountability Status

Current status: Active (serving as U.S. Senator from Missouri; Chair, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution). Term ends January 3, 2029.

Legal exposure: None identified. His December 2020 filings were submissions to the Supreme Court in an original action, which the Court denied without sanction, and his November 2020 Boockvar amicus brief was an ordinary certiorari-stage filing; no bar complaint, sanction motion or investigation concerning them was located in the sources reviewed. His hearing statements and his DOJ letter are legislative or oversight activity, which the Speech or Debate Clause protects where it applies. One civil suit names him: Hobson v. Schmitt, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, No. 4:26-cv-00633, filed April 28, 2026, a pro se 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint that also names former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner; the RECAP docket mirror (re-checked October 25, 2026) lists the cause as 42 U.S.C. § 1983, nature of suit 440 (Civil Rights: Other), assigned to Judge Henry Edward Autrey, with no termination date. It does not show the claims, his capacity or any ruling, and no merits finding exists. Campaign finance: Three 2026 FEC staff letters questioned apparent excessive contributions and reporting problems in his campaign committee’s reports; his treasurer attributed them to a software error and filed amendments (Documented Action 11). No FEC enforcement action, conciliation agreement or fine is documented.

Court-records search (CourtListener, retrieved 2026-10-15, filings after January 20, 2025): 51 name matches, 20 returned. Most are suits naming an Eric Schmitt who is a New York Times national-security reporter (the July 2026 S.D.N.Y. grand-jury subpoena matter and the New York Times Co. v. Department of Defense cases), not the senator; others are full-text matches with no party role for him. RECAP mirrors PACER only partially, so this result is unverified, not a finding that no other litigation exists.

Congressional oversight:

  • Senate Select Committee on Ethics — jurisdiction over member conduct, including the use of committee records at the September 29, 2026 hearing that the committee’s Democrats say broke Senate Rules XXVI and XXVII. No ethics complaint is documented; the Democrats’ letter is addressed to the chairman.
  • Senate Judiciary Committee — his own committee; the ranking member has contested the conduct of the September 29 hearing.
  • House and Senate Judiciary (Civil Rights) — oversight of DOJ Civil Rights Division actions against majority-minority districts following his letter.

Public accountability:

  • Missouri Independent (States Newsroom) and KCUR cover his redistricting push and the Smith hearing; DPIC and the Midwest Innocence Project document the wrongful-conviction cases.
  • The October 7, 2026 letter from all ten Judiciary Committee Democrats, led by Sen. Dick Durbin, demanding the withheld records and an apology to Jack Smith; Grassley’s office refused.
  • The Missouri Independent’s October 2, 2026 report on the FEC letters to his campaign.
  • Voting-rights organizations tracking post-Callais redistricting, including the Brennan Center and Democracy Docket.

Electoral: Next election 2028.

Open research leads

  1. Partly resolved 2026-10-25: the earlier filing is the Missouri et al. amicus brief in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Degraffenreid, No. 20-542, filed November 9, 2020 (after the election). Still open: the brief’s text — which states joined, and whether it asked only for review of the receipt-deadline rule or for relief reaching certified results. That text decides whether the pattern factor in the gate test moves to “Yes.”
  2. Obtain his December 8, 2020 statement and any communications with the Trump campaign or Texas AG’s office about the brief and the intervention motion.
  3. Verify against primary reporting two Wikipedia-reported quotations: that a conviction-integrity review found Lamar Johnson’s innocence supported by “overwhelming evidence,” and that the prosecutor who reviewed Strickland’s case called the attorney general’s position “profoundly idiotic.” Also verify the Missouri Independent report (seen only in a search summary) that his office added five attorneys to the Johnson case on the day the December 12, 2022 hearing was set.
  4. Confirm whether Schmitt or his office joined the RLDF conference call or any planning for January 6, 2021 (the Daily Beast reported it was unclear).
  5. Primary dockets for the 25 Biden-administration suits, the China suit and the Medicaid-expansion litigation.
  6. Senate roll calls on the SAVE America Act in March and June 2026, including any vote on S.Amdt.4420 (Schmitt’s substitute; congress.gov lists three actions, the last “Considered by Senate” on March 19, 2026).
  7. DOJ Civil Rights Division actions after April 30, 2026 directed at majority-minority districts.
  8. The September 29, 2026 exhibits: committee Democrats and MS NOW place their origin in a Justice Department production to Republican committee staff. Still open: the full texts, whether Schmitt’s office was warned they were unvetted (single-source MS NOW report), and whether Grassley has produced them to the minority. Also the full NatCon remarks as prepared and delivered.
  9. Hobson v. Schmitt: complaint, capacity in which he is sued, and disposition (RECAP shows no termination as of 2026-10-25).
  10. The three 2026 FEC Requests for Additional Information to Schmitt for Senate and the amended reports filed in response (FEC.gov committee filings), to confirm the counts the Missouri Independent reported and whether refunds or Treasury disgorgements followed.
  11. The Justice Department or ATF release on Operation Show Me Justice, to cite the operation’s figures to the primary record.

Truth and Reconciliation Considerations

Investigation priorities

  1. Who drafted the December 9, 2020 amicus brief and the December 10 intervention motion, and what communications Schmitt’s office had with the Trump campaign, the White House or the Texas Attorney General’s office before filing.
  2. What Schmitt knew of the Rule of Law Defense Fund’s January 6 activities as RAGA vice chairman, and whether any RAGA or RLDF leadership approved the robocall.
  3. What DOJ did after his April 2026 letter and Dhillon’s reply: any investigations, letters or suits directed at majority-minority districts, and any coordination between his subcommittee and the Civil Rights Division.
  4. The internal decision process in the attorney general’s office for opposing the Strickland and Johnson innocence motions after local prosecutors had concluded the men were innocent.
  5. What the Justice Department produced to Judiciary Committee Republicans from the Special Counsel’s files before the September 29, 2026 hearing, whether staff warned Schmitt’s office the texts were unvetted, and why the records were not shared with the minority as Senate Rule XXVI requires.

Testimony value

Schmitt could uniquely establish how a coalition of Republican attorneys general was assembled for Texas v. Pennsylvania on a short deadline, who supplied the fraud theory the brief relied on, and whether anyone in the effort was told beforehand that DOJ and the FBI had found no outcome-changing fraud. As subcommittee chair he could also establish what the Civil Rights Division committed to do about majority-minority districts and whether that commitment was coordinated with redistricting efforts in particular states.

Institutional reform

  • Interstate election suits: Require that original-jurisdiction election challenges by one state against another be filed before certification deadlines, and that state attorneys general disclose outside drafting and funding for amicus briefs in election cases.
  • Redistricting: Enact a federal ban on mid-decade congressional redistricting, as Sen. Welch proposed at the May 2026 hearing, and restore preclearance-style review for map changes that reduce minority-opportunity districts.
  • Innocence cases: Give local prosecutors’ innocence motions a defined role for the attorney general limited to the record, with deadlines, so that procedural motions cannot add years to an innocent person’s imprisonment.
  • Legislative hearings: Require that any exhibit displayed as evidence at a Senate hearing be provided in advance to the witness and to both sides of the committee, and entered in the record.
  • Attorney-general associations: Require state attorneys general who hold office in partisan associations to disclose those associations’ election-related expenditures and communications.

Cross-References

Skills: patriot-voting-research, democratic-health-monitoring, dangerous-rhetoric-assessment, malice-evaluator, public-records-research-specialist

Related profiles: ken-paxton-profile, harmeet-dhillon-profile, josh-hawley-profile

Topics: Texas v. Pennsylvania, 2020 election litigation, Republican Attorneys General Association, Rule of Law Defense Fund, wrongful convictions, Murthy v. Missouri, Louisiana v. Callais, majority-minority districts, SAVE America Act, National Conservatism Conference, Senate Judiciary Committee

Investigative trail pointers (public records)

Education only — verify independently. Absence of hits is not proof.

Channel Starting points
Federal courts CourtListener / PACER party and attorney searches (spelling variants; distinguish the New York Times reporter of the same name); Supreme Court docket 22O155
Campaign finance FEC + OpenSecrets for Schmitt for Senate and leadership PACs; RAGA and Rule of Law Defense Fund filings (IRS Form 990)
Corporate / LLC State secretary of state; OpenCorporates for cross-border shells from reporting
Sanctions / PEP OpenSanctions when international business context is already sourced
Contracts / grants USAspending.gov for named entities from investigations
Legislative record Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing records (May 19, 2026); full-committee record of September 29, 2026; Senate roll calls on the SAVE America Act
State records Missouri Attorney General archives (2019–2022) and Missouri Sunshine Law requests for the 2020 brief and the innocence cases

Use public-records-research-specialist, corporate-intelligence-investigator, and public-corruption-ombudsman evidence tiers.

Factual correction requests: If you believe information in this profile is incorrect, please contact factcheck@citizenanalyst.ai with your name (optional), the specific claim, and any supporting documentation. We review all submissions and correct verified errors promptly.

Sources

  1. Supreme Court of the United States, “Brief of the State of Missouri and 16 Other States as Amici Curiae in Support of Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to File Bill of Complaint,” Texas v. Pennsylvania, No. 22O155, December 9, 2020. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22O155/163215/20201209144840609_2020-12-09%20-%20Texas%20v.%20Pennsylvania%20-%20Amicus%20Brief%20of%20Missouri%20et%20al.%20-%20Final%20with%20Tables.pdf
  2. Supreme Court of the United States, “Motion to Intervene and Proposed Bill of Complaint” (Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah), Texas v. Pennsylvania, No. 22O155, December 10, 2020. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22O155/163322/20201210115500103_2020-12-10%20-%20Motion%20to%20Intervene%20and%20Proposed%20Bill%20of%20Complaint%20-%20Final%20With%20Tables.pdf
  3. Supreme Court of the United States, “Order in Pending Case, 155, Orig., Texas v. Pennsylvania, et al.,” December 11, 2020. https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/121120zr_p860.pdf
  4. Ariana Figueroa, Missouri Independent, “Supreme Court rejects lawsuit backed by Missouri AG Schmitt trying to overturn presidential election,” December 11, 2020. https://missouriindependent.com/2020/12/11/supreme-court-rejects-lawsuit-backed-by-missouri-ag-schmitt-trying-to-overturn-presidential-election/
  5. Missouri Independent, “Missouri AG joins lawsuit challenging presidential election results in four states,” December 9, 2020. https://missouriindependent.com/2020/12/09/missouri-ag-supports-lawsuit-challenging-presidential-election-results-in-four-states
  6. The Missouri Times, “Schmitt ‘had no knowledge of’ attorneys general group’s robocall ahead of US Capitol riot,” January 2021. https://themissouritimes.com/schmitt-had-no-knowledge-of-attorneys-general-groups-robocall-ahead-of-us-capitol-riot/
  7. Missouri Independent, “Eric Schmitt denies involvement in call for Trump supporters to march on U.S. Capitol,” January 2021. https://missouriindependent.com/?p=4149
  8. Wikipedia, “Texas v. Pennsylvania.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Pennsylvania
  9. Death Penalty Information Center, “Kevin Strickland Exonerated 42 Years After Wrongful Capital Murder Conviction in Missouri,” November 24, 2021. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/kevin-strickland-exonerated-42-years-after-wrongful-capital-murder-conviction-in-missouri
  10. Missouri Independent, “Roadblocks facing Kevin Strickland’s innocence claim nothing new for Missouri,” September 3, 2021. https://missouriindependent.com/2021/09/03/roadblocks-facing-kevin-stricklands-innocence-claim-nothing-new-for-missouri/
  11. Missouri Independent, “Lamar Johnson to be set free after decades in Missouri prison for murder he didn’t commit,” February 14, 2023. https://missouriindependent.com/2023/02/14/lamar-johnson-to-be-set-free-after-decades-in-missouri-prison-for-murder-he-didnt-commit/
  12. Midwest Innocence Project, “Lamar Johnson Press Release,” February 14, 2023 (advocate source). https://themip.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023.02.14-Johnson-Press-Release.pdf
  13. Supreme Court of the United States, Murthy v. Missouri, No. 23-411, June 26, 2024. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf
  14. MLFA, “SCOTUS Unpacked: Murthy v. Missouri Evades Ruling on Potential Government Censorship.” https://mlfa.org/scotus-unpacked-murthy-v-missouri-evades-ruling-on-potential-government-censorship-hidden-in-
  15. Senator Eric Schmitt, “Statement on Murthy v. Missouri Ruling,” June 26, 2024. https://www.schmitt.senate.gov/media/press-releases/senator-schmitt-statement-on-murthy-v-missouri-ruling
  16. Wikipedia, “Eric Schmitt.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmitt
  17. Ballotpedia, “Eric Schmitt.” https://ballotpedia.org/Eric_Schmitt
  18. Office of Senator Eric Schmitt, official biography, updated 2025. https://www.schmitt.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ESS-downloadable-bio-for-website-updated-2025.pdf
  19. U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote No. 372, 119th Congress, 1st Session, “On Passage of the Bill (H.R. 1, as Amended),” July 1, 2025. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00372.htm
  20. KOMU, “Both US senators for Missouri voted for Big Beautiful Bill,” July 2025. https://www.komu.com/news/state/both-us-senators-for-missouri-voted-to-pass-one-big-beautiful-bill-act/article_697bb334-12d1-43e1-aecb-30078d2237e9.html
  21. KSHB, “All 4 Kansas, Missouri senators vote to pass ‘Big Beautiful Bill’,” July 2025. https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/all-4-kansas-missouri-senators-vote-to-pass-big-beautiful-bill
  22. Slate, “Sen. Eric Schmitt gives a shockingly white nationalist speech,” September 2025 (opinion; used only for verbatim quotations of the speech). https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/09/eric-schmitt-white-nationalism-national-conservatism-conference.html
  23. The New Republic, “GOP Senator Draws Outrage After Speech on Who America ‘Belongs To’,” September 2025. https://newrepublic.com/post/199933/republican-senator-schmitt-speech-america-belongs-to-us
  24. Missouri Independent, “What is an American? Are they Christian? Are they white?” October 17, 2025. https://missouriindependent.com/2025/10/17/what-is-an-american-are-they-christian-are-they-white
  25. Associated Press via WSLS, “National conservatism asserts its dominance in Trump’s Washington,” September 5, 2025. https://www.wsls.com/news/politics/2025/09/05/national-conservatism-asserts-its-dominance-in-trumps-washington/
  26. Senator Eric Schmitt, “Schmitt to Introduce Amendment to SAVE America Act Following Through on Trump Priorities,” March 2026. https://www.schmitt.senate.gov/media/press-releases/schmitt-to-introduce-amendment-to-save-america-act-following-through-on-trump-priorities
  27. The Daily Signal, “Schmitt Leads Charge to Pack SAVE America Act With Conservative Wins,” March 18, 2026. https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/03/18/senate-gop-forces-dems-vote-trans-surgeries-minors/
  28. FactCheck.org, “Q&A on the SAVE America Act,” March 2026. https://www.factcheck.org/2026/03/qa-on-the-save-america-act
  29. States Newsroom via Florida Phoenix, “US Senate blocks Trump’s SAVE America Act, thwarting restrictions on voting,” June 5, 2026. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/06/05/repub/us-senate-blocks-trumps-save-america-act-thwarting-restrictions-on-voting/
  30. Missouri Independent via KCUR, “Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt pushes for DOJ crackdown on majority-minority congressional districts,” May 20, 2026. https://www.kcur.org/politics-elections-and-government/2026-05-20/missouri-sen-eric-schmitt-pushes-for-doj-crackdown-on-majority-minority-congressional-districts
  31. Supreme Court of the United States, Louisiana v. Callais, No. 24-109, April 29, 2026. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf
  32. MS NOW, “GOP senator suffers embarrassing blunder while grilling Jack Smith in hearing,” September 29, 2026. https://www.ms.now/news/news-analysis/eric-schmitt-jack-smith-senate-hearing-basketball
  33. CNN via Channel 3000, “An embarrassing moment for the GOP, a defensive witness and other takeaways from Jack Smith’s hearing,” September 29, 2026. https://www.channel3000.com/news/national-and-world-news/an-embarrassing-moment-for-the-gop-a-defensive-witness-and-other-takeaways-from-jack-smith/article_d5db806c-61c9-5297-b7f6-e9a9e893bae2.html
  34. Washington Examiner, “Hawks or Hawkeyes? Eric Schmitt’s Jack Smith grilling runs into basketball mix-up,” September 29, 2026. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senate/4746785/atlanta-hawks-iowa-hawkeyes-eric-schmitt-mix-up-jack-smith-hearing
  35. Missouri Independent, “Eric Schmitt bungles accusation against former special counsel Jack Smith in heated hearing,” September 2026. https://missouriindependent.com/?p=33026
  36. States Newsroom via Michigan Advance, “US Senate Dems demand apology from Chuck Grassley to Jack Smith for attacks at hearing,” October 8, 2026. https://michiganadvance.com/2026/10/08/repub/us-senate-dems-demand-apology-from-chuck-grassley-to-jack-smith-for-attacks-at-hearing/
  37. CourtListener (RECAP), Hobson v. Schmitt, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, No. 4:26-cv-00633, filed April 28, 2026; retrieved October 15, 2026, re-checked October 25, 2026. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73257070/hobson-v-schmitt/
  38. Supreme Court of the United States, docket No. 20-542, Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Degraffenreid (formerly v. Boockvar), including “Brief amici curiae of State of Missouri, et al.” (November 9, 2020) and the order denying certiorari (February 22, 2021); retrieved October 25, 2026. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/20-542.html
  39. Congress.gov, S.Amdt.4420 to S.1383, 119th Congress (2025-2026), sponsor Sen. Eric Schmitt, submitted and proposed March 17, 2026; retrieved October 25, 2026. https://www.congress.gov/amendment/119th-congress/senate-amendment/4420
  40. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats (Sens. Durbin, Whitehouse, Klobuchar, Coons, Blumenthal, Hirono, Booker, Padilla, Welch, Schiff), letter to Chairman Charles E. Grassley re Republicans’ withholding of committee records, October 7, 2026. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/sjc_dems_letter_to_chair_re_republicans_withholding_of_committee_records.pdf
  41. Rebecca Beitsch, The Hill, “Durbin demands Schmitt records and an apology for Jack Smith,” October 8, 2026. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/6136280-senate-democrats-eric-schmitt-jack-smith
  42. Politico, “Democrats call on Chuck Grassley to apologize to Jack Smith for basketball gaffe,” October 8, 2026. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/08/democrats-judiciary-jack-smith-eric-schmitt-01110755
  43. Mychael Schnell, Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian, MS NOW, “Eric Schmitt was warned about the Jack Smith texts. He used them anyway,” September 30, 2026 (single anonymous source on the warning). https://www.ms.now/news/eric-schmitt-jack-smith-texts-grassley-judiciary
  44. Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent, “FEC questions thousands of donations to Eric Schmitt tied to prolific online donors,” October 2, 2026. https://missouriindependent.com/2026/10/02/fec-questions-thousands-of-donations-to-eric-schmitt-tied-to-prolific-online-donors
  45. WKNO / PBS NewsHour, “DOJ and Missouri Sen. Schmitt hold news conference on violent crime reduction,” October 15, 2026. https://www.wknofm.org/2026-10-15/doj-and-missouri-sen-schmitt-hold-news-conference-on-violent-crime-reduction
  46. Stepheny Price, Fox News Digital via New York Post, “France in flames is preview of what ‘DSA’ Democrats want for US, senator warns,” October 22, 2026. https://nypost.com/2026/10/22/us-news/france-in-flames-is-preview-of-what-dsa-democrats-want-for-us-sen-eric-schmitt-warns

Last Updated: 2026-10-25 Profile Status: Draft Next Review: Quarterly

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