Admittedly I didn’t think there was a single person who didn’t believe that Jussie Smollett’s claims to have been attacked at three in the morning in freezing weather in Chicago by men in MAGA hats was a hoax. Apparently I was wrong.
As anyone who followed the case knows, Smollett’s allegations quickly crumbled. The two men who allegedly attacked him turned out to be brothers who were associates of Smollett who he paidcheck before the attack. The brothers later told police the money was to carry out the “phony attack” which Smollett planned to use to take “advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career.”
Still, Smollett never admitted that the “attack” was orchestrated. As a result, the two brothers later filed a lawsuit against Smollett’s attorney, and their suit “alleges that [Smollett’s lawyer] and his firm continued to say publicly in widely reported statements that the brothers ‘led a criminally homophobic, racist and violent attack against Mr. Smollett,’ even though they knew that wasn’t true.”
But – get this – some activists are citing the Smollett ordeal as proof of racism in the legal system against Smollett. I’d say “you can’t make this stuff up” – but with the left there’s never any need to.
In an open letter penned in “The Grio,” a handful of activists including Women’s March founder Linda Sarsour, Marxist icon Angela Davis, BLM Los Angeles co-founder Melina Abdullah, actor Danny Glover, among many others, the fact that Smollett faces charges today for allegedly filing a false police report is proof of a “relentless and vicious smear campaign initiated by the Chicago Police Department and uncritically disseminated by the media.”
The open letter truly is a spectacle to read. First they claim the following.
At a time when the people of Chicago are demanding community control of the police and when our movement for Black Lives demands that police be defunded and demilitarized, Chicago police and prosecutors continue to expend precious public resources to cover up a hate crime and renew their fabricated case against Jussie Smollett.
…The Chicago Police Department (CPD) investigated but refused to make public any of their findings that corroborated Jussie’s account of the attack. For example, a security guard at a Sheraton Hotel near Jussie’s apartment saw two masked men running by, one “a white male in his 20s.”
Of course, the reason they didn’t “make public any of their findings that corroborated Jussie’s account” is because there weren’t any. While we already know who the alleged attackers are, these activists are relying on the eyewitness testimony of someone who saw two men whose faces were covered in masks (and were likely otherwise well covered due to the cold weather) but somehow could tell they were white.
The activists at The Grio also claim that a neighbor witnessed a suspicious white man with rope outside Smollet’s apartment the night of the attack, the source for which appears to be a TMZ article. Again this information is useless because the people who allegedly attacked Smollett weren’t white.
We then “learn” that Smollett can’t possibly be lying, because Smollett never said that he lied.
In face of felony charges that he staged the attack, Jussie has never wavered in his description of what occurred. The main evidence proffered by CPD in support of the charges is the coerced statement of brothers Abel and Ola Osundairo. Abel had been employed by Jussie as his personal trainer. Ola, known to Chicago police through an unrelated case, had previously faced charges of attempted murder but pled to a lesser charge.
But Smollet has changed his story. He told Good Morning America that he heard someone yell “hey Empire” to get his attention. The alleged assailant then said a homophobic slur and the n-word, adding “this is MAGA country” before punching him in the face. (Ransom aside: It’s doubtful that even the most die-hard Trump supporter thinks that the city of Chicago is MAGA country). When Smollett spoke to the police 40 minutes after the incident he never mentioned the “MAGA country” comment. He also told Good Morning America that he saw which direction his attackers ran afterwards, but he previously told the police that he didn’t.
I’m not sure why they’re bringing up past charges of one of the brothers as if it’s exonerating evidence for Smollett, as faking a hate crime is a crime itself (one which the brothers were not charged for due to their cooperation). If anything, it demonstrates inclination towards that behavior.
As for his motive, we’re told that Smollett couldn’t have possibly done it to boost his image, because “Jussie was in high demand for new projects, including starring in a new Broadway production, directing Empire episodes, and starring in two feature films.” Perhaps that just wasn’t enough.
Smollett was indicted by a grand jury in February on six charges of filing false reports, and that case still has yet to play out.
We’ll know the truth for sure soon – not like it’ll make any difference to the activist crowd.
