Jussie Smollett charged with felonies for staging a fake hate crime.

Former "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett. Reuters. 

Former "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett was charged with six counts of disorderly conduct for staging a fake hate crime. Reuters. Smollett stands accused of hiring two Nigerian men to fake an attack on him while in Chicago. Smollett then went to the police claiming two white men in "MAGA" hats had attacked him with a noose and poured bleach on him. Smollett was charged before but the charges were dropped by the prosecutor, which spawned bipartisan outrage. Chicago's mayor, Rahm Emaneul assigned a special prosecutor to the case who has been investigating it for a year before these charges were filed. For his part Smollett still claims he was attacked. The charges against Smollett are felonies. 

My Comment:

The Jussie Smollett case and the dismissal of it was one of the few things that where both the right and the left in America agreed on. All but a few conspiracy theory supporters of Smollett agreed that the man needed to be thrown in prison for what he did. Almost everyone was disgusted by what he did.

For the Republicans, they were angry that Smollett defamed them. He claimed that he was attacked by racist and homophobic Trump supporters and tried to paint all Trump supporters with the same brush. This didn't happen and what he did could have resulted in reprisal attacks or even someone innocent going to jail or prison. 

For the Democrats, they were furious that Smollett had lied to them and more than a little angry that he made his defenders look ridiculous. They also felt that Smollett made it more difficult for actual victims of bias crimes to come forward. 

Smollett's story never made any sense at all. He claimed that during the middle of a blizzard/cold snap at 3:00 am, that two white Trump supporters, in the middle of Chicago no less, just happened to find him, recognized him and then attacked him? And they just happened to have rope and bleach with them as well? Even before the story fell apart it didn't pass the smell test.

After it was pretty conclusively proven that Smollett made the whole thing up people were expecting that he would go to jail. After all, he lied about a hate crime, wasted an already overworked police department's time and slandered an entire group of people. What he did was criminal in nature and he deserved to go to prison for it. 

But what happened? Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx dismissed the case. It's generally thought she was pressured to do so politically, but almost everyone around her was outraged by this. Even Chicago's Mayor, the famously liberal Rahm Emanuel was disgusted by this and thankfully did the right thing in sending in a special prosecutor.

Foxx may pay a political price for her role in this case as she is facing a difficult primary. Her primary opponents are already playing up the case and her role in it as reasons why she shouldn't be reelected. Some of her die hard supporters are trying to defend her, but my sincere hope is that she loses the primary election and is sent packing. 

As for Smollett himself, I do hope he is convicted at trial. It's clear to me that he's guilty of what he stands accused of and a jury should see the same thing. But you never can tell with juries and it's possible that there will be an activist on the jury that will go for jury nullification. I hope that doesn't happen and that Smollett at least serves some time in prison.