Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) offered a hearty endorsement of Cook County, Illinois, state attorney Kim Foxx, who gained national attention after she decided to drop 16 charges of disorderly conduct against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett for his notorious “hate crime” hoax.
In the Twitter endorsement, Warren called Foxx a “seasoned advocate and a champion invested in rethinking the country’s approach to criminal justice reform.” She added: ‘”I’m confident that when reelected, she’ll continue to be an effective public servant who leads with compassion, and I’m proud to endorse her!”
Warren’s endorsement, however, comes as local news organizations continue to struggle with why Foxx decided to drop the charges against the actor.
When the Chicago Tribune editorial board held an interview with four state attorney candidates, there were so many unanswered questions about the Smollett decision that nearly half of the hour-long meeting was dedicated to the case.
“We have done work in the last three years that has made this office a model,” Foxx told the editorial board. “While there may be people that are focused on this one case, we have now led the nation in the vacating of wrongful convictions. Violent crime has gone down because we’ve put our resources in going after gun crimes in some of our hardest-hit neighborhoods.“
“We have a standard of transparency that our office would love to hold itself to that we fell short of,” said Foxx. “The results, the outcome of that case left many people not understanding why … which then questions the legitimacy of the outcome.
Although Foxx has declined to discuss specifics, citing an ongoing investigation by U.S Attorney Dan Webb, the Tribune’s editorial board disagreed with this assertion on Wednesday, saying that “Foxx can say what she wants and Webb can conclude what he wishes.”
The editorial board then presented a number of overarching questions for Webb’s office to answer that, due to the upcoming state attorney primary election, citizens “deserve answers” to and that “investigators cannot leave hanging.”
One of the questions reference Foxx’s decision to recuse herself from the case — but not her entire office — and messages obtained during a public records request that show Foxx scolded an assistant over the case. Another question focuses on Foxx’s relationship to the ex-chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, and if any persons “directly or indirectly sought to shape the decisions of prosecutors.”
As The Daily Wire previously reported, evidence surfaced last March that Tina Tchen, the former chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, was in communication with both Foxx and an unnamed member of the Smollett family. After Tchen told Foxx that the Smollett family had “concerns” about “how the investigation was being characterized in public,” Foxx told Tchen the following in an email: “Spoke to the Superintendent [Eddie] Johnson. I convinced him to reach out to FBI to ask that they take over the investigation.”
Foxx then relayed the news to an unnamed member of the Smollett family, who said “Omg this would be a huge victory.”