Special prosecutor Dan Webb has indicted actor Jussie Smollett in connection with a hate crime hoax that he was accused of staging last January.
“The Cook County Clerk&#8217;s Office confirmed Tuesday that special prosecutor Dan Webb has indicted former ‘Empire’ actor Jussie Smollett in connection with the alleged attack,” ABC 7 <a href="Smollett%20had%20been%20charged%20with%2016%20counts%20of%20felony%20disorderly%20conduct%20for%20allegedly%20lying%20to%20police%20about%20the%20alleged%20attack,%20which%20police%20say%20Smollett%20staged%20on%20himself%20because%20he%20was%20unhappy%20with%20his%20%22Empire%22%20salary.">reported</a>. “Smollett had been charged with 16 counts of felony disorderly conduct for allegedly lying to police about the alleged attack, which police say Smollett staged on himself because he was unhappy with his ‘Empire’ salary.”
ABC 7 reporter Rob Elgas later added that Webb&#8217;s office said in a statement: &#8220;a Cook County grand jury returned a six-count indictment charging Jussie Smollett with making four separate false reports to Chicago Police Department officers related to his false claims that he was the victim of a hate crime&#8230;&#8221;
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MORE: From special prosecutor Dan Webb&#39;s office: &quot;a Cook County grand jury returned a six-count indictment charging Jussie Smollett with making four separate false reports to Chicago Police Department officers related to his false claims that he was the victim of a hate crime&#8230;&quot;
&mdash; Rob Elgas (@RobElgasABC7) <a href="https://twitter.com/RobElgasABC7/status/1227357072678846469?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Fox 4 <a href="https://www.fox4news.com/news/jussie-smollett-indicted-by-special-prosecutor-in-chicago-source-says">noted</a> that prosecutors had insisted last year that &#8220;Smollett faked the racist, anti-gay attack on himself in the hopes that the attention would advance his acting career.&#8221;
&#8220;But with little explanation, authorities in March of 2019 abruptly dropped all charges against Smollett, abandoning the criminal case only five weeks after the allegations were filed. In return, prosecutors said, the actor agreed to let the city keep his $10,000 in bail,&#8221; Fox 4 added. &#8220;The dismissal drew a swift backlash from the mayor and police chief and raised questions about why Smollett was not forced to admit what prosecutors had said they could prove in court &#8211; that the entire episode was a publicity stunt.&#8221;
The development comes after a Cook County judge recently ordered Google to turn over nearly all of Smollett’s data from the last year.
“The warrants, filed last month in Circuit Court, sought a trove of documentation from Smollett and his manager’s Google accounts — not just emails but also drafted and deleted messages; any files in their Google Drive cloud storage services; any Google Voice texts, calls and contacts; search and web browsing history; and location data,&#8221; The Chicago Tribune <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-jussie-smollett-special-prosecutor-investigation-20200108-j3j3p2dypvf5vbbo5jpxrvcjsq-story.html">reported</a>. “Authorities could be looking for any incriminating remarks from Smollett or his manager, especially in the months after State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office abruptly dismissed disorderly conduct charges against the then-‘Empire’ actor just weeks after his indictment.”
Numerous top officials weighed blasted Cook County State’s Attorney’s office after it had dropped all charges against Smollett.
“I’m sure we all know what occurred this morning,” then-Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson  <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-jussie-smollett-emanuel-johnson-transcript-20190326-story.html" rel="noopener">said</a>. “My personal opinion is that you all know where I stand on this. Do I think justice was served? No.”
“Where do I think justice is?” Johnson continued. “I think this city is still owed an apology. … When I came on this job, I came on with my honor, my integrity and my reputation. And if someone accused me of doing anything that would circumvent that, then I would want my day in court. Period. To clear my name.”
“I’ve heard that they wanted their day in court with TV cameras so America could know the truth,” Johnson added. “And now they chose to hide behind secrecy and broker a deal to circumvent the judicial system.”
Then-Democrat Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel expressed even more anger with his comments on Smollett.
“This is a whitewash of justice,” Emanuel said. “A grand jury could not have been clearer.”
“You cannot have, because of a person’s position, one set of rules apply to them and another set of rules apply to everybody else,” Emanuel continued. “In another way, you’re seeing this play out in the universities, where people pay extra to get their kids a special position in universities. Now you have a person, because of their position and background, who’s getting treated in a way that nobody else would ever that would ever get close to this type of treatment.”
“The city saw its reputation dragged through the mud,” Emanuel added. “This is without of doubt a whitewash of justice and sends a clear message that if you’re in a position of influence and power, you’ll get treated one way, other people will be treated another way. There is no accountability in the system. It is wrong, full stop.”
“I wanted to say one other thing,” Emanuel said. “Mr. Smollett is still saying that he is innocent, still running down the Chicago Police Department.”
“How dare he! How dare him! After everybody saw — and I want to remind you — this is not the superintendent’s word against his,” Emanuel continued. “The grand jury, a sliver of the evidence and they came to a conclusion, as did the state’s attorney’s office. This is not the superintendent and the detectives, department, word against his!”
“And even after this whitewash, still, no sense of ownership of what he’s done. He says that in fact he is the wronged in this case,” Emanuel added. “This is an unbelievable, not just whitewash of justice, this a person now that’s been let off scot-free, with no sense of accountability of the moral and ethical wrong of his actions, from top to bottom, not only to tarnish the name of the city.”
“But then I cannot stress that in a time when you have people bringing a moral equivalency in Virginia between bigots and those fighting bigotry, and you have a person using hate crime laws that are on the books to protect people, who are minorities, from violence, to then turn around and use those laws to advance your career and your financial reward,” Emanuel concluded. “Is there no decency in this man?”
WATCH:
<iframe title="Chicago police slam decision in Jussie Smollett case" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7E45gPnqnCA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This report has been updated to include additional information.

Jussie Smollet

Jussie Smollett Indicted By Special Prosecutor In Chicago

Jussie Smollett

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 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/kim-foxx-chicago-smollett.html">16 charges</a> of disorderly conduct against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett for his notorious &#8220;hate crime&#8221; 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.&#8221; She added: &#8216;&#8221;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 <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-cook-county-states-attorney-candidates-editorial-board-20200127-xx3bn3eeybelzcnr3xpd3kbje4-story.html">Chicago Tribune</a> 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 &#8230; 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&#8217;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 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/michelle-obamas-ex-chief-staff-admits-she-did-try-james-barrett">The Daily Wire</a> 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.”

Senate Impeachment Trial Of President Trump Continues

‘Rethinking Country’s Approach To Criminal Justice’: Warren Endorses Official Who Dropped Smollett Charges

2020 Election

Crime

Democratic Party

Elizabeth Warren

Hate Crime

As we end another year, our popular culture still revolves around President Donald Trump, and our news and entertainment conglomerates continue to be outraged that conservative Christians stick with him, so much so they are summarily ignored. Support him as, say, Franklin Graham and a vast majority of evangelicals have done and &#8230; crickets. But what happens when evangelicals don&#8217;t?
Happy days are here again. The left has lunged to promote an editorial by Christianity Today magazine that insists Trump must be removed from office. What the left understands — and some on the right still ignore — is that the cultural is far more powerful than the political. Thus, whenever a force on the cultural left flaps its wings, it is saluted. In the rare occasion that the entity advances the cultural right, it&#8217;s slammed, or ignored.
But that&#8217;s not necessarily how America sees it, thanks to social media that has done an end run around the press and told the truth. The left still dominates in the cultural space, but it no longer enjoys a monopoly.
Let&#8217;s look at the cultural winners and losers of 2019:
Loser: Jussie Smollett, the &#8220;Empire&#8221; actor and Hollywood race hoaxer who cost the taxpayers of Chicago more than $130,000 for all the time it took police to look for a nonexistent hate crime. Nothing says viral like a black gay celebrity claiming he was beaten by red-hatted Trumpster thugs. For two weeks, the left went nuts. Celebrities, politicians and the &#8220;news&#8221; media convicted Trump World for what it had allegedly caused. And it never happened. And now all of America knows it.
Winners: the students of Covington Catholic High School. Speaking of viral sensations of &#8220;fake news&#8221; around Trump hats, these high school kids were smeared relentlessly for several days for allegedly making evil smirks at a Native American activist. But the Diocese of Covington launched an investigation and found &#8220;no evidence of offensive or racist statements.&#8221; Again it was social media that spread the word to tens of millions across the country about the wrong done to the students. They were vindicated in the court of public opinion.
Winner: &#8220;Unplanned,&#8221; the movie about Abby Johnson, who converted from Planned Parenthood clinic director to conservative Catholic activist. Major music labels refused to license songs for it. Cable-news channels refused to run ads for it. Newspaper film critics refused to review it. And yet the little film became the talk of social media. What Pure Flix delivered has done more to advance the pro-life cause than the National Right to Life Committee has accomplished in the past three decades.
Loser: the abortion industry. In September, the Planned Parenthood-affiliated Guttmacher Institute estimated that there were about 862,000 abortions in 2017, nearly 200,000 fewer than in 2011. The abortion rate — the number of abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 — dropped to 13.5 in 2017, the lowest rate since Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in 1973.
Loser: Gillette. In January, NPR touted a Gillette ad that attacked its own consumers. &#8220;The first half of the ad portrays males as boorish, sexually harassing women, mansplaining and bullying,&#8221; NPR reported. It probably saw the ad as an anti-Trump message. The second half of the ad insisted men must change. The ad went viral. Then, Gillette dug in deeper. Shortly before Father&#8217;s Day, the company launched an ad about a dad teaching his &#8220;son&#8221; — a biological girl — how to shave. Sales tanked. But the company claimed it wasn&#8217;t the ads. It blamed &#8220;lower shaving frequency.&#8221;
Loser: The Walt Disney Studios. It dominated the top-grossing movies, but superhero flicks like &#8220;Avengers: Endgame&#8221; and &#8220;Captain Marvel&#8221; pandered aerobically to feminists. And for all that energy, leftist sites like Slate still bashed the movies for being &#8220;too patronizing, too late.&#8221; Why bother messing with superheroes?
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Captain Marvel.

BOZELL & GRAHAM: Cultural Winners And Losers Of 2019

Abortion

Covington Catholic High School

Disney

Gillette

Marvel

The creators of &#8216;Empire&#8221; are reportedly considering bringing back Jussie Smollett, who was fired from the show after allegedly contriving a hoax hate crime in January of 2019, just to end the series and leave him jobless yet again.
TVLine reports that &#8220;Empire&#8221; showrunner Brett Mahoney wants Smollett to come back just for the series finale because, he says, it just wouldn&#8217;t make sense for the show to end without one of its main characters present for the finale.
“It would be weird in my mind to end this family show and this family drama of which he was such a significant part of without seeing him,” <a href="https://tvline.com/2019/12/17/jussie-smollett-returning-empire-season-6-jamal-series-finale/">Mahoney told TVLine</a>. “It’s fair to say it’s being discussed, but there’s no plan as of yet to bring him back. There’s been no decision made.”
Smollett played Jamal, a musician, singer, and the son of the main character, record executive Lucious. Jamal was written out of the show in a series of episodes at the end of season five, which had him marrying his longtime partner and moving to London. Showrunners then cut his scenes from the show&#8217;s two-part season finale. &#8216;Empire&#8217; no longer references Smollett&#8217;s character at all, but because the series is likely to end on a &#8220;family crisis&#8221; &#8212; a plotline the show has been building to since its pilot episode &#8212; presumably Smollett&#8217;s character and his now-husband would return for a short appearance.
A return to &#8220;Empire&#8221; &#8212; even a short one &#8212; would probably be considered a &#8220;win&#8221; for Smollett, who was booted from the series after being charged with sixteen counts of lying to Chicago police in a series of official reports stemming from what Smollett claims was a &#8220;hate crime&#8221; perpetrated against him back in January of 2019.
Smollett told police that he was attacked near his apartment in Chicago&#8217;s tony Streeterville neighborhood, by two white, partially masked men wearing &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; hats. He claimed, at the time, that the two men assaulted him, beat him, threw a &#8220;noose&#8221; around his neck, and then taunted him with racial and homophobic slurs before disappearing into the night. According to Smollett&#8217;s narrative, the pair concluded their attack with the words, &#8220;This is MAGA country.&#8221;
After a two-week investigation, Chicago police detectives concluded that Smollett conspired with a pair of extras he met on the &#8220;Empire&#8221; set &#8212; two Nigerian-American bodybuilders &#8212; to stage the &#8220;hate crime&#8221; in order to raise his profile as an actor and, hopefully, earn himself a pay raise for his &#8220;Empire&#8221; role. He was charged with lying to police, but the charges were dropped in a controversial, unofficial &#8220;plea deal&#8221; Smollett inked with Chicago prosecutors.
Although his &#8220;Empire&#8221; bosses backed Smollett in the beginning of his ordeal, even as Smollett&#8217;s story began to unravel, show creator Lee Daniels fired Smollett from &#8220;Empire&#8221; after he was charged by CPD. He even told TVLine at the time that Smollett wouldn&#8217;t be welcomed back to the show, even if it became necessary to track down and update audiences about his character.
“Jussie will NOT be returning to &#8216;Empire,'&#8221; Daniels tweeted back in June.
Smollett&#8217;s personal ordeals are far from over. The City of Chicago sued him for around $100,000 in police overtime, accumulated while detectives investigated what the city calls Smollett&#8217;s &#8220;hoax&#8221; hate crime, and a judge recently allowed the case to move forward toward trial in May of 2020. The FBI and the United States Postal Service are reportedly still investigating a letter, sent to Smollett at &#8220;Empire&#8217;s&#8221; Chicago set, which contained a &#8220;white powdery substance&#8221; later determined to be crushed Tylenol. Smollett is also suspected to be behind that letter.

Actor Jussie Smollett

‘Empire’ Toys With Bringing Back Jussie Smollett Just To Fire Him Again

Rapper Snoop Dogg trolled Jussie Smollett this week with a meme posted to his Instagram account over Smollett&#8217;s ongoing scandal in which he is accused of staging a hate crime hoax on himself.
The drama surrounding Smollett stems from a January 29 incident in which he claims that he was attacked in downtown Chicago late at night by two white men who recognized him from his TV show &#8220;Empire.&#8221; Smollett claimed that the two men called him racial and homophobic slurs, attacked him, put a noose around his neck, and poured bleach on him.
The police investigation into Smollett took a turn after the two suspects, Nigerian brothers, agreed to cooperate with investigators, telling them that Smollett orchestrated the fake hate crime.
Snoop Dogg posted a meme to his Instagram account this week mocking Smollett.
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Smollett was charged on February 20 with felony disorderly conduct for filing a false police report, which carries a maximum of up to three years in prison. On March 7, a grand jury returned a 16-felony count indictment against Smollett over the incident.
A few weeks later, however, prosecutors dropped all charges against Smollett, saying, &#8220;After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollet[t]&#8217;s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his [$10,000] bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case.&#8221;
In August, &#8220;Cook County Judge Michael Toomin appointed former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb to the position to investigate the way the case was handled — specifically, why the 16 criminal charges against Smollett were dropped and to potentially reinstate the charges or even add additional charges against Smollett,&#8221; The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-special-prosecutor-appointed-jussie-ryan-saavedra">reported</a>.
“Webb gained prominence for his lead role during the Operation Greylord investigations into judicial corruption in Cook County,” Fox 32 <a href="http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/crime/dan-webb-named-special-prosecutor-in-smollett-case">reported</a>. “He served as special counsel in the Iran-Contra affair and was previously appointed by Judge Toomin in the death of David Koschman.”
Toomin had ruled that a special prosecutor was needed because of the way that Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx handled the case.
“What causes concerns is that she appointed him to an entity that had and has no legal existence. There is no office of acting state’s attorney,” Toomin <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/06/21/judge-to-appoint-special-prosecutor-to-jussie-smollett-case-prosecutor-could-reinstate-charges/">said</a>. “Here, the ship of the State ventured from its protected harbor without the guiding hand of its captain. There was no master on the bridge to guide the ship as it floundered through unchartered waters. The unprecedented irregularities identified in this case warrants the appointment of independent counsel to restore the public’s confidence in the integrity of our criminal justice system.”
Toomin announced that the special prosecutor was not only going to look into Foxx&#8217;s behavior but also had the power to charge Smollett and could reinstate any criminal charges that were previously dropped.
“If reasonable ground exist to further prosecute Smollett, in the interest of justice the special prosecutor may take such action as may be appropriate to effectuate that result,” Toomin wrote. “In the event the investigation establishes reasonable grounds to believe that any other criminal offense was committed in the course of the Smollett matter, the special prosecutor may commence the prosecution of any crime as may be suspected.”
“Foxx had been in contact with a Smollett relative and was approached by former first lady Michelle Obama’s one-time chief of staff on behalf of Smollett’s family,” Fox 6 <a href="https://fox6now.com/2019/08/23/special-prosecutor-named-to-look-into-jussie-smollett-case/">reported</a>. “Foxx also publicly wondered if her being black has anything to do with the criticism she has received.”

Snoop Dogg Jussie Smollett

Snoop Dogg Trolls Jussie Smollett With Savage Meme

Snoop Dogg

Former &#8220;Empire&#8221; actor Jussie Smollett has filed a counterclaim against the city of Chicago in an ongoing lawsuit by the city seeking reinbursement for $130,000 in overtime spent by Chicago police investigating Smollett&#8217;s alleged hoax hate crime.
Smollett, in papers filed Wednesday, claims that he was targeted by the city for &#8220;malicious prosecution&#8221; and it caused him &#8220;humiliation and extreme distress,&#8221; <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/jussie-smollett-chicago-malicious-prosecution">per Fox News</a>.
&#8220;Smollett’s counterclaim targets the city, the Chicago Police Department, Detectives Michael Theis and Edward Wodnicki, Supt. Eddie Johnson and Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, along with other unnamed individuals,&#8221; adds <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2019/11/20/20973937/jussie-smollett-malicious-prosecution-counterclaim-chicago">the Chicago Sun-Times</a>.
Smollett, of course, became the subject of a criminal investigation after detectives with the Chicago Police Department determined, after weeks of investigation, that he likely fabricated his claim that he was accosted, beaten, and called homophobic and racist &#8220;slurs&#8221; while walking back to his downtown Chicago apartment from a local Subway sandwich shop.
Smollett told police, in two separate interviews, that he was assaulted by two white men wearing red &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; hats, early in the morning of January 29th. The two men identified Smollett by name, he said, then beat him, threw a &#8220;noose&#8221; around his neck, and splashed a chemical substance on his clothes before yelling, &#8220;This is MAGA country!&#8221; and disappearing into the night.
A subsequent investigation revealed that Smollett may have coordinated the attack with a pair of Nigerian-American brothers who he met when they were extras on his show, &#8220;Empire.&#8221; Witness testimony seemed to indicate that Smollett planned his own attack in order to raise his profile, after his bosses on &#8220;Empire&#8221; failed to take enough notice of hate mail &#8212; a death threat scrawled in red pencil accompanied by a &#8220;white substance&#8221; that turned out to be crushed Tylenol &#8212; sent to Smollett at the show&#8217;s Chicago soundstage.
Prosecutors initially charged Smollett with sixteen counts of lying to police, but Smollett was able to avoid criminal proceedings after striking an unofficial &#8220;plea deal&#8221; with Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx&#8217;s office, which wiped his record clean in return for a $10,000 bond check and a few hours of community service.
The city, seeking justice, then calculated the cost of police overtime hours accumulated during the departments investigation of the alleged hoax and issued Smollett $130,106 bill.
When he refused to pay, the city sued, and now Smollett says they don&#8217;t deserve his money.
Smollett&#8217;s lawyers claim that investigators believed “false, self-serving, and unreliable statements&#8221; made by the two Osundario brothers &#8220;in order to close the investigation into the attack on Mr. Smollett,&#8221; and that detectives did not properly investigate the real crime &#8212; the alleged hate attack.
The counterclaim also says that Smollett should avoid any further trouble with the city because his off-the-books plea deal resolved the case &#8220;in Mr. Smollett’s favor and in a manner which indicates his innocence because all 16 counts of the criminal indictment were dismissed two and a half weeks after the indictment was filed.”
Although the Cook County States Attorney inked the deal with Smollett, and he has insisted, in the wake of that resolution, that it demonstrates his innocence, representatives from the States Attorney have been clear: the bargain was to avoid the issue altogether and in no way does it demonstrate that Smollett is innocence of any charge of misleading or lying to police.
But in the event neither of those arguments work, Smollett also says the $10,000 he paid to the city as part of his agreement with prosecutors is enough to cover the cost. The $10,000, his lawyers say, can be considered “as payment in full in connection with the dismissal of the charges against him.”
Smollett and his attorneys have repeatedly asked the court to dismiss the case altogether, as well, but, recently, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall determined that the city&#8217;s case can go forward. The case is due to be heard early next year, and the two parties are currently trading motions.

Jussie Smollett Files Counterclaim Against City Of Chicago For ‘Malicious Prosecution’

Chicago

President Donald Trump may have launched his most scathing insult yet at Democrats during a speech he gave to the International Association of Police Chiefs on Monday in Chicago, comparing them to former &#8220;Empire&#8221; actor and alleged hate crime hoaxer, Jussie Smollett.
The President took aim at several characters in his Chicago speech, excorating the city&#8217;s major and police superintendent, Eddie Johnson, who skipped the conference to avoid Trump, as well as Congressional Democrats currently conducting an impeachment &#8220;inquiry&#8221; behind closed doors in Washington, D.C.
Smollett, of course, is now famous for being the victim of a &#8220;hate crime&#8221; last winter. Smollett claimed that two white men wearing &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; hats waited for him outside his apartment in Chicago&#8217;s tony Streeterville neighborhood, and accosted him when he returned home with a midnight snack in the wee hours of January 29th. The actor eventually told police that the two men assaulted him, beat him, tossed a &#8220;noose&#8221; over his neck, and then ran away, shouting a host of racial and homophobic slurs, capped off with the declaration, &#8220;This is MAGA country!&#8221;
An extensive police investigation appeared to reveal that Smollett had collaborated with two friends &#8212; both &#8220;Empire&#8221; extras and local personal trainers &#8212; to stage the attack. He was charged with sixteen counts of lying to police officers, but the charges were eventually dropped in a sweetheart deal with Chicago&#8217;s chief prosecutor.
Trump clearly hasn&#8217;t forgotten that he and his supporters were drawn into Smollett&#8217;s alleged hoax, and that, for days, celebrities and media figures assailed President Trump over the attack. And he certainly hasn&#8217;t forgotten that some of Smollett&#8217;s top defenders are now involved in establishing a case for his impeachment.
&#8220;You have the case of this wiseguy Jussie Smollett who beat up himself, and he said MAGA country did it. It’s a crime, a hate crime. That’s a scam, a real big scam just like the impeachment of your president is a scam,” Trump told the room full of police officers.
“And you look what’s going on, Smollett is still trying to get away with it. He would have been better off with his face on [a] $100,000 bill,&#8221; he continued.
The Trump Administration maintains that the President should not be the subject of an impeachment inquiry, but Democrats are pursuing one, regardless, under the theory that Trump made a quid-pro-quo deal with Ukrainian officials: international aid dollars in return for a Ukrainian investigation into whether former Vice President (and current candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination) Joe Biden used his office to pull strings for his son, Hunter, who was doing business in the country.
Trump followed up his criticism of Democrats with criticism of Chicago&#8217;s police.
“People like Johnson put criminals and illegal aliens before the citizens of Chicago,” Trump said, referencing Chicago&#8217;s &#8220;sanctuary city&#8221; policy and the city&#8217;s high murder rate. “Those are his values and, frankly, those values to me are a disgrace.”
&#8220;It&#8217;s embarrassing to us as a nation,&#8221; Trump added. &#8220;All over the world they&#8217;re talking about Chicago. Afghanistan is a safe place by comparison.&#8221;
While Trump is generally correct about the Afghanistan numbers, Johnson has presided over a steep decline in violent crime in Chicago, according to the Chicago Police Department&#8217;s own numbers. Shootings &#8212; by far Chicago&#8217;s most public problem &#8212; are down more than 10% year over year, and Chicago has officially lost the title of &#8220;most violent city in America,&#8221; dropping to twenty-first after cities like Baltimore, Maryland, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/travel/experience/america/2018/10/17/25-most-dangerous-cities-america/1669467002/">according to USA Today</a>.
Johnson is also, ironically, the chief motivating force behind an ongoing city of Chicago lawsuit against Jussie Smollett, seeking to recover $130,000 worth of overtime pay accrued by detectives investigating Smollett&#8217;s &#8220;hate crime.&#8221;
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President Trump Compares Impeachment To Jussie Smollett ‘Scam’ In Chicago Speech

Donald Trump

Former &#8220;Empire&#8221; actor Jussie Smollett and his attorneys lost their bid, Tuesday, to toss out a civil case, filed by the city of Chicago seeking to recoup around $130,000 spent investigating Smollett&#8217;s alleged hoax hate crime.
A Federal judge told Smollett&#8217;s attorneys that the case can move forward into discovery and the court set a loose timeline for trial, tabling litigation until early 2020.
The city of Chicago filed the civil suit against Smollett after he failed to pay a $130,000 bill, levied by the city&#8217;s Finance Department, to recoup dozens of overtime hours accrued by Chicago Police Department detectives while the chased down two racist, homophobic individuals who, Smollett said, attacked him outside of his apartment in the city&#8217;s tony Streeterville neighborhood in the wee hours of January 19th.
Smollett claimed that two white attackers wearing &#8220;Make America Great Again Hats&#8221; accosted him as he made his way back home from a nearby Subway sandwich shop. According to Smollett, the two men assaulted him, punched him in the face, tossed a noose around his neck, and doused him with a chemical before yelling, &#8220;This is MAGA country!&#8221; and taking off, leaving him lying in the street.
Smollett filed two police reports, one almost immediately after the incident and a second one later in the day after being released from the hospital, where he&#8217;d gone for treatment for minor injuries.
It later emerged, following an intense, multi-week investigation by Chicago Police Department detectives, that Smollett may have orchestrated his own hate crime, paying two former &#8220;Empire&#8221; extras &#8212; a pair of Nigerian-American brothers who also served as Smollett&#8217;s sometimes-personal trainers &#8212; to stage the attack in order to elevate his profile (which he thought could earn him more on &#8220;Empire&#8221;).
Following these revelations, which came alongside surveillance footage, further police interviews, and sworn testimony from the two brothers, Smollett was charged with 16 counts of filing a false police report &#8212; one count for each crime he alleged.
Smollett was eventually let off the hook, inking a de facto plea deal with the Cook County States Attorney, who dropped all charges against Smollett in return for two dozen hours of community service, which Smollett had previously completed, and Smollett&#8217;s $10,000 bond deposit. Smollett was not &#8220;cleared&#8221; of the charges, but the deal effectively ended the city of Chicago&#8217;s involvement in the case. An FBI and United States Postal Service investigation, into allegations that Smollett sent himself a noxious substance through the mail, has yet to conclude.
The city of Chicago then filed their suit seeking reimbursement.
Smollett&#8217;s attorneys argued Tuesday, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2019/10/22/jussie-smollett-chicago-lawsuit-actor-still-facing-130-k-civil-suit/4000512002/">USA Today reports</a>, that Smollett should not be forced to pay because &#8220;Smollett himself did not direct Chicago police to spend weeks investigating his claim and could not have known how much time and money would be spent.&#8221;
The judge did not agree, noting that &#8220;if someone was going to falsely claim a racist and homophobic attack, it isn’t unreasonable to think the Chicago Police wouldn’t spend the hours necessary to investigate it,&#8221; according to local <a href="https://twitter.com/RaferWeigel/status/1186658483896229892">Chicago reporter Rafer Weigel</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Judge Kendall denies <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JussieSmollett?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JussieSmollett</a> lawyers request to dismiss the case. Saying, if someone was going to falsely claim a racist and homophobic attack, it isn’t unreasonable to think the <a href="https://twitter.com/Chicago_Police?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Chicago_Police</a> wouldn’t spend the hours necessary to investigate it. Moving to discovery. <a href="https://t.co/Qv6t9GwioL">https://t.co/Qv6t9GwioL</a>
&mdash; Rafer Weigel (@RaferWeigel) <a href="https://twitter.com/RaferWeigel/status/1186646829263400960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 22, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
When asked why Smollett wanted to pursue the case, despite the likelihood that his legal fees will total more than the original $130,000 fine, <a href="https://twitter.com/RaferWeigel/status/1186658483896229892">his attorney told Weigel</a> that “my client has maintained his innocence and he believes you don’t put a price tag on that. He’s willing to spend what it takes to prove his innocence because, unfortunately, he has been proven guilty in the media more than proven innocent.&#8221;
His attorney later added, “(Jussie) has always maintained his innocence and is happy to have this decided on the facts and when the facts come out they will show his innocence.”
The judge opened the case up to discovery and pre-trial motions. A trial on the merits of the case is likely to wait until summer of 2020.

Jussie Smollett Loses Bid To Boot Civil Suit From Chicago Finance Department

Former White House aide Tina Tchen will take the reins of the &#8220;#MeToo&#8221;-centered Time&#8217;s Up foundation, which advocates for women who face discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual assault in the entertainment industry &#8212; and its the same Tina Tchen that tried to wield her influence to get former &#8220;Empire&#8221; actor Jussie Smollet off the hook for allegedly filing a false police report in Chicago.
Time&#8217;s Up was formed by Hollywood A-listers in the wake of a high-profile wave of sexual harassment allegations aimed at some of the entertainment industry&#8217;s biggest names. <a href="https://deadline.com/2019/10/times-up-names-former-obama-aide-tina-tchen-as-its-new-president-and-ceo-1202753957/">According to Deadline</a>, the organization primarily runs the Time&#8217;s Up Legal Defense Fund, which helps &#8220;defray legal and public relations costs for those pursuing sexual harassment retaliation claims,&#8221; and which Tchen co-founded back in 2018.
Time&#8217;s Up announced their new hire on Monday in a Tweet. Tchen released a video in partnership with Time&#8217;s Out Monday afternoon. In it, she explains her firm commitment to victims rights and due process.
&#8216;I have been a single working mother throughout my career, and I have never witnessed such an inspiring and honest conversation about the challenges facing women and all workers, including sexual harassment, power, and equity,” Tchen says in the video statement. “I am more optimistic than ever that we can create workplaces where everyone has an equal opportunity to reach their full potential and, in this new role, I’m determined to make it happen.”
Her official biography on the Time&#8217;s Up website describes Tchen as a tireless advocate for women and girls, and a former aide to both Barack and Michelle Obama, serving on the Obama White House&#8217;s gender equality and sexual assault task forces. She most recently worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center, helping to identify and process sexual harassment claims made against some of SPLC&#8217;s power players.
Her goal, she says, is to force workplaces in Hollywood to abide by the letter of the law.
“[We’re going to] work hard at the root cause of sexual harassment: because sexual harassment occurs when we have workplaces that aren’t diverse, that aren’t inclusive, that don’t respect their workers,” Tchen says. “And so we’re going to work with companies, with employers, with employees to make those workplaces ones that are safe, respectful, and where everyone can reach their full potential.”
Tchen has recently made headlines for her involvement in a high profile criminal case recently, but not on the side of victims &#8212; or taxpayers.
According to the Sun Times, Tchen is the former Obama aide who reached out to Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx to plead Jussie Smollet&#8217;s case.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/former-michelle-obama-chief-staff-pushed-get-james-barrett">The Daily Wire reported extensively</a> on Tchen&#8217;s involvement in the Smollet case at the time. <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2019/03/13/jussie-smollett-former-obama-aide-asked-fbi-lead-investigation/3156693002/">Court documents revealed</a> that Tchen texted and emailed Foxx at the behest of Jussie Smollet&#8217;s family, begging the Cook County prosecutor to convince the police to drop their case against Smollet or turn over the case to the FBI (which probably would have relegated the case to a low priority).
Foxx ended up recusing herself from the investigation &#8212; at least according to Foxx &#8212; before it concluded, citing her messages with Tchen as evidence she could not claim impartiality in the case. The prosecutor&#8217;s office eventually charged Smollet with 16 counts of lying to police but dropped all counts in an unofficial &#8220;plea deal&#8221; with Jussie, who agreed to do a dozen hours of community service and forfeit a $10,000 bond.
Foxx has come under fire for that decision, particularly in light of recent revelations about her office, including evidence that non-celebrities charged with Smollet&#8217;s same crime received much harsher treatment.

Tina Tchen Time&#8217;s Up

New #MeToo Leader Is Former Obama Aide Who Ran Interference For Jussie Smollet

Hollywood

Michelle Obama

Sexual Harassment

Speculation about whether “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett may yet be charged for orchestrating a hate crime hoax intensified after the two brothers who say the actor hired them to attack him met with the special prosecutor working on the case.
Abel and Ola Osundairo said earlier this year that Smollett hired them to attack him while he was out in Chicago one early, frigid morning so that he could negotiate a higher salary on “Empire.” TMZ <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2019/10/05/jussie-smollett-osundairo-brothers-meeting-special-prosecutor/">reported</a> this weekend that the brothers met with Special Prosecutor Dan Webb, who was assigned to look into the deal that allowed Smollett to get off the hook for faking the attack by paying $10,000 and performing 16 hours of community service.
“Sources close to the case tell TMZ &#8230; Abel and Ola met with Dan Webb&#8217;s team this week because the special prosecutor wanted to hear their full story &#8212; their version of Jussie&#8217;s alleged attack,” TMZ reported. “Our sources say the brothers each spent a couple hours with the special prosecutor&#8217;s team.”
Smollett was original indicted on 16 felony accounts for allegedly making up the attack. Smollett had claimed in late January that he went to a Subway sandwich restaurant at two in the morning during a polar vortex. As he was returning home, he claimed, two white men wearing pro-Trump hats attacked him, poured bleach on him, tied a noose around his neck, and shouted racial and homophobic slurs. This account required people to believe there are Trump supporters in Deep Blue Chicago who spend their nights trawling for someone to attack – and that these same people watch “Empire” and knew who Smollett was.
The charges against Smollett were dismissed by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office. State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said she had recused herself from the case due to a conflict of interest yet <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chicago-prosecutor-kim-foxx-deputies-subpoenaed-emily-zanotti">her influence was still seen</a> in the plea deal. Then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the office’s decision to drop the charges a “whitewash of justice.”
A special prosecutor was appointed to look into how the case unraveled. The City of Chicago is also still looking into ways to force Smollett to repay them for the time and resources spent on investigating the alleged hoax.
TMZ also reported that Webb has his own conflict-of-interest issues, but a Chicago judge ruled Friday that it does not appear as though Webb is biased. Webb had donated $1,000 to Foxx’s campaign and hosted a fundraiser for her.
Page Six <a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/10/05/special-prosecutor-meets-with-nigerian-brothers-in-jussie-smollett-probe/">reported</a> that Webb has the power to reinstate charges against Smollett.
Last week, Smollett <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jussie-smollett-lashes-out-after-being-compared-to-girl-who-faked-hate-crime-i-havent-lied-about-a-thing">lashed out</a> at a self-help guru who compared him to 12-year-old Amari Allen, who had claimed white boys at her school held her down, cut her dreads, and hurled racial slurs at her. After the media incredulously reported her crimes, Allen admitted she made up the story and her grandparents apologized on her behalf.
Smollett claimed he was nothing like Allen despite the similar stories:
<blockquote>With all due respect brother, y’all can clown me all you want but my story has actually never changed and I haven’t lied about a thing. Y’all can continue to be misinformed, internalized sheep, who believe what actual proven liars feed you or you can read the actual docs. Either way, I’mma be alright. I know me and what happened. You don’t. So carry on. All love.</blockquote>

Jussie Smollet May Still Be Charged Over Hate Crime Hoax

Hoax

Jussie Smollett lashed out this week after being compared to the pre-teen girl who falsely claimed three white boys at her school held her down and cut her dreads.
On Monday, The Shade Room posted a photo on Instagram of its article about the Virginia teenager, Amari Allen, after she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/african-american-girl-claimed-white-classmates-forcibly-cut-her-hair-now-the-truth-is-out">admitted to making up the story</a>. Her grandparents apologized for her lies and the hurt she caused to the three white students she falsely accused.
Self-help guru Derrick Jaxn responded to the post, writing, “Jussie really is a trendsetter [face palm emoji].” The post was an obvious reference to Smollett’s claims earlier this year that two white male supporters of President Donald Trump viciously attacked him in Chicago and placed a noose around his neck. The case was later determined to not be true, as the men were actually of Nigerian descent and knew Smollett personally. The two men said Smollett paid them to orchestrate the hoax.
Jaxn’s comment apparently irked Smollett, who responded:
<blockquote>With all due respect brother, y&#8217;all can clown me all you want but my story has actually never changed and I haven&#8217;t lied about a thing. Y&#8217;all can continue to be misinformed, internalized sheep, who believe what actual proven liars feed you or you can read the actual docs. Either way, I&#8217;mma be alright. I know me and what happened. You don&#8217;t. So carry on. All love.</blockquote>
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<a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B3DLIfsB4zW/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">#ClapbackSeason: #JussieSmollett stepped into #TheShadeRoom to let his truth be known! 👀</a>
<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" href="https://www.instagram.com/theshaderoom/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> The Shade Room</a> (@theshaderoom) on <time style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;" datetime="2019-09-30T20:57:55+00:00">Sep 30, 2019 at 1:57pm PDT</time>
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Smollett’s claim was ludicrous on its face. It requires one to believe that there are emboldened Trump supporters in Deep Blue Chicago wandering the town at 2 a.m. during a polar vortex with a bottle of bleach and rope just hoping to run into someone they could attack. It also requires one to believe that these two predators watched “Empire” and recognized Smollett as an actor.
Smollett went to a Subway restaurant in the early hours of January 29, 2019. On his way back to his friend’s apartment, the two men allegedly attacked him. He returned to the apartment with the noose still around his neck and his Subway meal intact.
Police investigated Smollett’s claims, eventually learning that two brothers of Nigerian descent were behind the attacks. One had been paid by Smollett for personal training and had been a guest star on “Empire.” The two claimed Smollett paid them to orchestrate the attack and even purchased the red baseball hats they wore that were meant to look like Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hats.
Police charged Smollett for staging the attack in an attempt to negotiate a higher salary on “Empire,” but the charges were dropped in what many believe was a corrupt deal. Smollett paid a $10,000 bond and performed 16 hours of community service for his actions, though he maintains his victimhood. The city of Chicago is currently attempting to recover the costs of the investigation into Smollett’s claims.
Last week, media outlets fell for yet another hate crime hoax after a Virginia teenager claimed three white classmates held her down, cut her dreads, and called her hair “nappy.” The teen later admitted she made up the incident.

Jussie Smollett Lashes Out After Being Compared To Girl Who Faked Hate Crime: ‘I Haven’t Lied About A Thing’

After law enforcement concluded that instead of being a victim of a racist, homophobic assault by Trump supporters on a freezing cold night in Chicago, actor Jussie Smollett had allegedly &#8220;orchestrated&#8221; a hate crime hoax against himself, &#8220;Empire&#8221; announced that he would not be returning for its final season.
On Tuesday, the first episode of the Fox show&#8217;s final season aired with one character conspicuously missing. So how did the show&#8217;s creators choose to write Smollett off the show? They literally gave his absence a dismissive &#8220;anyway.&#8221;
&#8220;The last time &#8216;Empire&#8217; fans saw Jussie Smollett on the show, he was getting married to the love of his life, looking jubilant in a white tuxedo and dancing with his new husband while family drama swirled around him,&#8221; writes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/arts/television/jussie-smollett-empire.html">The New York Times&#8217;</a> Julia Jacobs. &#8220;At that point, Mr. Smollett’s character, Jamal Lyon, was the focal point of the show: Fans watched him fret over his vows and patch up a last-minute fight with his fiancé before they walked down the aisle.&#8221;
Cut to the Season 6 premiere in which the suddenly vanished Jamal is merely a passing reference. His glaring absence is only noted in one scene, in which his mother Cookie (played by Taraji Henson) and Jamal&#8217;s good friend Becky Williams (Gabourey Sidibe) briefly mention that he has simply decided to &#8220;[run] off to London.&#8221;
Cookie reveals the bizarre disappearance of Jamal in reference to Becky&#8217;s ultra-feminine PJs. When Becky remarks that she used to wear outfits like that to sleepovers with Jamal, Cookie quips, &#8220;No wonder that boy ran off to London.&#8221;
Why did he move to London? Becky offers another joking comment as a pseudo-explanation. &#8220;I thought he was running away from Lyon drama,&#8221; she says.
&#8220;I really miss him,&#8221; adds Becky, which prompts Cookie to reply, &#8220;Please don&#8217;t get me started; I miss him so much.&#8221;
With now just four lines dedicated to Jamal&#8217;s almost show-stopping disappearance — two throw-away jokes and two a little more serious but equally insincere — Cookie moves on with a big &#8220;anyway.&#8221;
&#8220;Anyway, why do we need to have this slumber party?&#8221; she ask.
And with that, Smollett&#8217;s central character is entirely dismissed from the formerly high-rated show.
As the controversy surrounding Smollett&#8217;s case continued following the abrupt dismissal of his long list of charges by much-criticized Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx, and city officials filing a lawsuit against him to recoup the $130,000 they say was wasted on investigating his &#8220;false report,&#8221; &#8220;Empire&#8221; creator Lee Daniels announced in June that Smollett would not be returning to the show.
In August, Cook County Judge Michael Toomin <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-special-prosecutor-appointed-jussie-ryan-saavedra">appointed</a> a special prosecutor, former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb, to investigate the way Smollett&#8217;s case was handled by Foxx&#8217;s office — and was given the power to potentially reinstate the charges, or even add additional charges, against the actor. While Smollett and his lawyers maintain that &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51162/jussie-smollett-pr-team-every-iota-hate-crime-paul-bois">every iota</a>&#8221; of the police-disputed story he told authorities is true, their various motions to have the city&#8217;s lawsuit dismissed have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/smollett-lawyers-make-last-ditch-argument-try-get-james-barrett">failed</a>.
This week was an awkward one for &#8220;Empire&#8221; in more ways than one. Along with the &#8220;anyway&#8221; scene dismissing one of the show&#8217;s biggest stars, another one of the leads in the series, Terrence Howard, landed himself in headlines for his wild explanation for why he was leaving the acting business altogether.
&#8220;I’ve made some discoveries in my personal life with the science that Pythagoras was searching for,&#8221; Howard told a bewildered interviewer on the red carpet of the Emmys Sunday. &#8220;I was able to open up the flower of life and find the real wave conjugations that we’ve been looking for for 10,000 years.&#8221; He went on to claim that he was going to &#8220;build the Milky Way galaxy without gravity.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-empire-stars-viral-emmys-interview-im-going-james-barrett">WATCH: ‘Empire’ Star’s Viral Emmys Interview: I’m Going To ‘Build The Milky Way Galaxy Without Gravity’</a>

‘Anyway’: Here’s How Jussie Smollett Was Written Off ‘Empire’

Racism

Sexuality

A few weeks after announcing that he was retiring from acting so he could &#8220;bring truth to the word,&#8221; &#8220;Empire&#8221; star Terrence Howard gave a red carpet interview at the Emmy&#8217;s on Sunday in which he attempted to present some of that &#8220;truth&#8221; he wants everyone to know — and it involves &#8220;the science that Pythagoras was searching for&#8221; and building Saturn and the Milky Way galaxy &#8220;without gravity.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51698/empire-star-terrence-howard-quits-acting-bring-paul-bois">The Daily Wire</a> reported two weeks ago, Howard told <a href="https://extratv.com/2019/09/11/empire-star-terrence-howard-says-hes-done-with-acting-once-the-show-ends/">Extra</a> correspondent Miss USA Cheslie Kryst that the cancelation of &#8220;Empire,&#8221; which came shortly after the Jussie Smollett debacle, helped lead the actor to decide to get out of the business altogether.
&#8220;What do you think will happen with your career? What do you see yourself doing going forward?&#8221; Kryst asked the 50-year-old actor.
&#8220;Oh, I&#8217;m done with acting. I&#8217;m done pretending,&#8221; he replied.
&#8220;You&#8217;re finishing up, you&#8217;re no long-acting, and you&#8217;re focusing solely on philanthropy and other interests?&#8221; asked Kryst.
&#8220;No, not philanthropy,&#8221; said Howard. &#8220;I&#8217;m just focusing on bringing truth to the world.&#8221;
So what exactly is that &#8220;truth&#8221;? Howard may have offered the world a glimpse into it on Sunday night. On the red carpet at the 71st annual Emmy Awards, Howard expanded on his reasons for retiring from acting to KTLA anchor Sam Rubin, who did his best to follow Howard&#8217;s increasingly bizarre response (video below).
&#8220;Everyone keeps trying to tell me, &#8216;Don&#8217;t say it&#8217;s forever,&#8217; but I&#8217;ve spent 37 years pretending to be people so people can pretend to watch and enjoy what I&#8217;m doing,&#8221; Howard replied, &#8220;when I&#8217;ve made some discoveries in my personal life with the science that Pythagoras was searching for.&#8221;
&#8220;I was able to open up the flower of life and find the real wave conjugations that we&#8217;ve been looking for for 10,000 years,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Why would I continue walking on water for tips when I&#8217;ve got an entire generation to teach a whole new world?&#8221;
&#8220;That&#8217;s a big remark,&#8221; said Rubin, who appeared to be struggling to figure out how to respond. &#8220;What, what, what do you intend to, to do?&#8221;
In response, Howard began to unpack that &#8220;Pythagorean&#8221; science.
&#8220;All energy in the universe is expressed in motion, all motion is expressed in waves, all waves are curved,&#8221; said the actor. &#8220;So where does the straight lines come from to make the platonic solids? There are no straight lines. So, when I took the flower of life and opened it properly, I found a whole new world of wave conjugations that expose the in-between spaces that— It&#8217;s the thing that holds us all together.
&#8220;You&#8217;re going to be sharing that?&#8221; asked a confounded Rubin.
&#8220;I&#8217;m going to share that,&#8221; Howard replied. &#8220;On Tuesday, when I receive my star, I&#8217;m going to be able to prove that gravity is only an effect, not a force.&#8221;
He then revealed the way he is going to &#8220;prove&#8221; it: &#8220;I&#8217;m putting something on YouTube where I will build the planet Saturn without gravity, and build the Milky Way Galaxy without gravity,&#8221; he said.
WATCH:
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">How are we not talking about the Terrance Howard interview on the red carpet at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Emmys2019?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Emmys2019</a> with <a href="https://twitter.com/KTLA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KTLA</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/SamOnTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SamOnTV</a> WHAT ON EARTH DID I JUST WATCH!?!?!? <a href="https://t.co/6NBilrkFM0">pic.twitter.com/6NBilrkFM0</a>
— StephenGlickman (@StephenGlickman) <a href="https://twitter.com/StephenGlickman/status/1176060073140817921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Howard was one of the stars of &#8220;Empire,&#8221; which was shaken by the Smollett case that dominated headlines earlier this year and has resulted in an ongoing lawsuit and investigation into the star for allegedly orchestrated a fake hate crime against himself. Amid the controversy, Fox announced that it was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48324/empire-creator-blames-hate-crime-hoaxer-jussie-paul-bois">discontinuing</a> &#8220;Empire,&#8221; which had already begun to slip in the ratings before Smollett and was further damaged after the investigation into his &#8220;hate crime&#8221; claim turned against the actor.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51382/smollett-lawyers-make-last-ditch-argument-try-get-james-barrett">Smollett Lawyers Make New Last-Ditch Argument To Try To Get Lawsuit Dismissed</a>
Partial transcript via <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/terrence-howard-gives-odd-interview-emmys-red-carpet-1242597">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.

terrance_howard_gi.jpg

WATCH: ‘Empire’ Star’s Viral Emmys Interview: I’m Going To ‘Build The Milky Way Galaxy Without Gravity’

Actor Terrence Howard, star of the now-canceled television show &#8220;Empire,&#8221; announced he will soon quit acting in order to bring &#8220;truth to the world.&#8221;
Speaking with Cheslie Kryst of <a href="https://extratv.com/2019/09/11/empire-star-terrence-howard-says-hes-done-with-acting-once-the-show-ends/">Extra</a>, Howard said that the cancelation of &#8220;Empire&#8221; has lead him to quit the acting business altogether.
Extra’s Special Correspondent Miss USA Cheslie Kryst was on the set of “Empire” with the show’s star Terrence Howard as he shot the final season of the hit FOX show.
&#8220;What do you think will happen with your career? What do you see yourself doing going forward?&#8221; asked Kryst.
&#8220;Oh, I’m done with acting. I’m done pretending,&#8221; Howard replied.
When pressed about what he will do now, Howard said he simply wants to &#8220;bring truth to the world.&#8221;
&#8220;You&#8217;re finishing up, you&#8217;re no long-acting, and you&#8217;re focusing solely on philanthropy and other interests?&#8221; Kryst asked.
&#8220;No, not philanthropy; I&#8217;m just focusing on bringing truth to the world,&#8221; he replied.
The show &#8220;Empire&#8221; ended in the wake of its chief star, actor Jussie Smollett, being accused by Chicago Police of staging a hoax hate crime against himself at the hands of MAGA hat-wearing Trump supporters. At the height of the controversy, Howard openly defended Smollett as more and more evidence mounted indicating his alleged guilt.
&#8220;All your lil homies got you&#8230; We love the hell outta you,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43876/actor-terrence-howard-jussie-smollett-jussie-i-frank-camp">he said on Instagram at the time</a>.
In response to critics, Terrence Howard said that the &#8220;Jussie I know&#8221; could never have concocted a fake hate crime against himself.
&#8220;That&#8217;s the only Jussie I know,&#8221; Howard said. &#8220;The Jussie I know could never even conceive of something so unconscious and ugly. His innocence or judgment is not for any of us to decide. Stay in your lane and my lane is empathy and love and compassion for someone I&#8217;ve called my son for five years. It&#8217;s God&#8217;s job to judge and it&#8217;s ours to love and hope, especially for those that we claim to have loved.&#8221;
Eventually, the evidence that Smollett allegedly hired two brothers from Nigeria to stage a fake hate crime became so overwhelming that the &#8220;Empire&#8221; cast ultimately backed away from the enthusiastic support. After the show&#8217;s cancellation, co-creator Lee Daniels laid the blame mostly on Smollett.
&#8220;I&#8217;m beyond embarrassed,&#8221; Daniels <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51162/jussie-smollett-pr-team-every-iota-hate-crime-paul-bois">told Vulture</a>. &#8220;I think that when it happened, I had a flash of me running from bullies. I had a flash of my whole life, of my childhood, my youth, getting beaten.&#8221;
Daniels added that his love for Smollett makes him feel &#8220;some doubt&#8221; at times that the actor indeed staged a fake hate crime against himself.
&#8220;Of course, there&#8217;s some doubt,&#8221; Daniels said. &#8220;I&#8217;m telling you that because I love him so much. That&#8217;s the torture that I&#8217;m in right now, because it&#8217;s literally if it were to happen to your son and your child, how would you feel? You would feel, Please, God, please let there be that glimmer of hope that there is some truth in this story. That&#8217;s why it&#8217;s been so painful. It was a flood of pain.&#8221;
&#8220;We weren&#8217;t there. I can&#8217;t judge him,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;That&#8217;s only for the f***ing lady or man with that black robe and God. I had to detach myself and stop calling him, because it was taking away the time I have for my kids, the time I have for my partner. It was affecting my spirit and other shows, everything.&#8221;

Terrence Howard

‘Empire’ Star Terrence Howard Quits Acting To Bring ‘Truth To The World’

In a last-ditch effort to get a $130,000 lawsuit filed by the City of Chicago dismissed, the lawyers of Jussie Smollett filed a motion Tuesday night that tries to make the case that even if a suspect files a false police report, as authorities say Smollett has done, that person can&#8217;t be held liable for the bill of a &#8220;sprawling&#8221; investigation.
Despite significant evidence indicating that he staged a fake hate crime against himself with the help of two of his acquaintances, who confessed as much to authorities, Smollett and his lawyers have adamantly maintained that he is innocent of all charges and that &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51162/jussie-smollett-pr-team-every-iota-hate-crime-paul-bois">every iota</a>&#8221; of his claim to police is true. Smollett told authorities he was attacked by Trump-supporting racists who doused him with bleach, assaulted him, and put a rope around his neck, a story he also told the public and his former &#8220;Empire&#8221; co-stars.
In a 12-page court filing Tuesday night, his legal representatives declared his &#8220;innocence&#8221; again and accused the city of engaging in a &#8220;vindictive&#8221; lawsuit. But they also added a new argument.
&#8220;This unprecedented civil case was filed simply because former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel disagreed with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s decision to dismiss the false police report charges against Mr. Smollett,&#8221; Smollett&#8217;s lawyer William Quinlan said in the motion, as reported by <a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/09/04/jussie-smolletts-lawyer-calls-chicagos-130k-lawsuit-vindictive/">Page Six</a>.
&#8220;Mr. Smollett has always maintained and continues to maintain his innocence,&#8221; the filing asserts. &#8220;Yet the City’s claims and purported damages are a vindictive effort to prosecute charges that the State’s Attorney pursued and then chose to drop.&#8221;
While their adamant insistence on his innocence is nothing new, Smollett&#8217;s team added a new wrinkle on Tuesday, as pointed out by <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2019/9/4/20848715/jussie-smollett-chicago-police-probe-lawsuit-gay-homophobic-attack">The Chicago Sun-Times</a>&#8216; Michael Sneed. &#8220;[T]he latest court filing contends even if Smollett did make a false report, there is no way the city can assert he would have known the city would investigate — and investigate it to the extent cops did,&#8221; Sneed notes.
&#8220;The mere fact somebody filed a police report doesn’t presume the investigation will be done and certainly not to the extent of what the city is claiming,&#8221; Quinlan argues in the filing. &#8220;Smollett has no control over that.&#8221;
&#8220;The filing of a police report, in and of itself, does not necessitate a sprawling investigation nor does it, as a practical matter, usually result in an investigation as extensive as the one the CPD chose to undertake in this case,&#8221; reads the motion, as highlighted by Sneed, adding: &#8220;The City has failed to allege that Mr. Smollett was similarly &#8216;well aware&#8217; that his statements to police would result in 1,836 hours of police overtime, or any other reasons why he should have known this would have been the case.&#8221;
Quinlan makes sure to maintain a sense of optimism about the case, declaring that it&#8217;s &#8220;going to be very difficult for the city to prevail in making a case my client should pay for overtime for a case ultimately dismissed by the state’s attorney,&#8221; and that it&#8217;s &#8220;ridiculous and a stretch to require him to do so.&#8221;
The city, which has made clear its determination to follow through on the case abruptly dropped by Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx, apparently feels otherwise. As for Foxx, two weeks ago, Cook County Judge Michael Toomin appointed a special prosecutor, former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb, to lead the investigation into how Foxx&#8217;s office handled Smollett&#8217;s case.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50967/breaking-special-prosecutor-appointed-jussie-ryan-saavedra">Special Prosecutor Appointed In Jussie Smollett Investigation</a>

jussie_smollett_gi

Smollett Lawyers Make New Last-Ditch Argument To Try To Get Lawsuit Dismissed

Rahm Emanuel

Jussie Smollett&#8217;s PR team is now claiming that &#8220;every iota&#8221; of the disgraced actor&#8217;s story about being a victim of a hate crime at the hands of MAGA Trump supporters is true despite overwhelming evidence alleging the contrary.
According to the <a href="https://wtop.com/national/2019/08/pr-firm-every-iota-of-smollett-claim-true-police-differ/">Associated Press</a>, the PR team released a statement on Wednesday in response to the city of Chicago&#8217;s lawsuit against Smollett seeking to recoup the financial costs his investigation brought about. From the report:
<blockquote>A statement emailed Wednesday follows a city filing Monday defending its lawsuit seeking to recoup costs of investigating what it says was a January publicity stunt.
The statement says “every iota of information … Smollett has stated has been fully corroborated.”
The statement didn’t say what evidence allegedly backs Smollett’s claim that masked men hurling racist and homophobic insults beat him and looped a noose around his neck.
The city says GPS data, video and other evidence prove Smollett paid the men to fake a hate crime.</blockquote>
Earlier this year, the &#8220;Empire&#8221; actor claimed that he fell victim to a hate crime on one cold winter&#8217;s night in Chicago at the hands of two men who derided him with homophobic slurs and then yelled &#8220;this is MAGA country&#8221; before tying a noose around his neck. At first, the media took Smollett&#8217;s story at face-value until evidence quickly mounted that he had hired two brothers from Nigeria to stage the attack, supposedly in an effort to bolster his salary on the show.
After Jussie Smollet turned himself in to police for the felony charge of filing a false police report, the situation took a turn for the worse when the charges against were suddenly dropped by Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx, prompting outrage from both the Chicago P.D. and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In an obvious attempt to rectify the situation and regain city trust, a Chicago judge appointed a special prosecutor earlier this month to investigate the way his case was handled.
&#8220;Cook County Judge Michael Toomin appointed former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb to the position to investigate the way the case was handled — specifically, why the 16 criminal charges against Smollett were dropped and to potentially reinstate the charges or even add additional charges against Smollett,&#8221; The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ryan Saavedra <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50967/breaking-special-prosecutor-appointed-jussie-ryan-saavedra">reported</a>.
Since the Smollett story became a national sensation, the hit show &#8220;Empire&#8221; has been canceled by FOX, leaving the actor&#8217;s career in virtual ruin. Speaking with Vulture back in June, the show&#8217;s creator, Lee Daniels, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48324/empire-creator-blames-hate-crime-hoaxer-jussie-paul-bois">admitted</a> that the actor&#8217;s antics played a part in &#8220;Empire&#8221; going off the air.
&#8220;I&#8217;m beyond embarrassed,&#8221; Daniels told Vulture. &#8220;I think that when it happened, I had a flash of me running from bullies. I had a flash of my whole life, of my childhood, my youth, getting beaten.&#8221;
Daniels added that his love for Smollett makes him feel &#8220;some doubt&#8221; at times that the actor indeed staged a fake hate crime against himself.
&#8220;Of course, there&#8217;s some doubt,&#8221; Daniels said. &#8220;I&#8217;m telling you that because I love him so much. That&#8217;s the torture that I&#8217;m in right now, because it&#8217;s literally if it were to happen to your son and your child, how would you feel? You would feel, Please, God, please let there be that glimmer of hope that there is some truth in this story. That&#8217;s why it&#8217;s been so painful. It was a flood of pain.&#8221;
&#8220;We weren&#8217;t there. I can&#8217;t judge him,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;That&#8217;s only for the f***ing lady or man with that black robe and God. I had to detach myself and stop calling him, because it was taking away the time I have for my kids, the time I have for my partner. It was affecting my spirit and other shows, everything.&#8221;

Jussie Smollett PR Team: ‘Every Iota’ Of Hate Crime Story Is True

A Chicago judge appointed a special prosecutor on Friday morning to lead the investigation into the handling of the Jussie Smollett case.
Cook County Judge Michael Toomin appointed former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb to the position to investigate the way the case was handled — specifically, why the 16 criminal charges against Smollett were dropped and to potentially reinstate the charges or even add additional charges against Smollett.
&#8220;Webb gained prominence for his lead role during the Operation Greylord investigations into judicial corruption in Cook County,&#8221; Fox 32 <a href="http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/crime/dan-webb-named-special-prosecutor-in-smollett-case">reported</a>. &#8220;He served as special counsel in the Iran-Contra affair and was previously appointed by Judge Toomin in the death of David Koschman.&#8221;
Webb <a href="https://www.apnews.com/ff3ce9b576b842cb8282222086e9a2aa">told</a> reporters on Friday: &#8220;I don&#8217;t know where this case is going. The facts will take me where they take me.&#8221;
Toomin ruled that a special prosecutor was needed in the case because &#8220;Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx had no authority to hand [the case] off to her top deputy after announcing she recused herself,&#8221; CBS News Chicago <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/06/21/judge-to-appoint-special-prosecutor-to-jussie-smollett-case-prosecutor-could-reinstate-charges/">reported</a>.
&#8220;Foxx had been in contact with a Smollett relative and was approached by former first lady Michelle Obama&#8217;s one-time chief of staff on behalf of Smollett&#8217;s family,&#8221; Fox 6 <a href="https://fox6now.com/2019/08/23/special-prosecutor-named-to-look-into-jussie-smollett-case/">reported</a>. &#8220;Foxx also publicly wondered if her being black has anything to do with the criticism she has received.&#8221;
Smollett told police on January 29, that he was walking home late at night when two masked men attacked him while hurling racist and homophobic slurs at him. Smollett further alleged that one of the attackers told him that he was in &#8220;MAGA country.&#8221;
Weeks later, authorities claimed that Smollett paid two black friends $3,500 to help him stage the attack on himself because he was not satisfied with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jussie-smollett-empire-salary-compared-to-tv-highest-paid-actors-2019-2">earning</a> $65,000-$125,000 per episode of a TV show on which he starred.
In June, after Toomin ruled that a special prosecutor would be appointed in the case, the Chicago Police Department doubled down on its claim that Smollett &#8220;fabricated&#8221; the &#8220;incident.&#8221;
Anthony Guglielmi, chief communications officer for the Chicago Police Department, tweeted at the time: &#8220;We stand firmly behind the work of detectives in investigating the fabricated incident reported by Jussie Smollett &amp; #ChicagoPolice will fully cooperate with the court appointed special prosecutor.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">We stand firmly behind the work of detectives in investigating the fabricated incident reported by Jussie Smollett &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChicagoPolice?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ChicagoPolice</a> will fully cooperate with the court appointed special prosecutor. <a href="https://t.co/bCDF0NYfzP">pic.twitter.com/bCDF0NYfzP</a>
— Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) <a href="https://twitter.com/AJGuglielmi/status/1142097063158718464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Special Prosecutor Appointed In Jussie Smollett Investigation

Former &#8220;Empire&#8221; star Jussie Smollett filed a motion Friday requesting that the court nullify an order last month assigning a special prosecutor to look into the handling of his case after its sudden dismissal by embattled State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx.
&#8220;Jussie Smollett, by his attorneys, Geragos &amp; Geragos, respectfully requests that this Court grant his Motion, vacate the June 21, 2019 Order, and deny the Petition to Appoint a Special Prosecutor,&#8221; reads the filing submitted by his attorneys, Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian, as reported by <a href="https://deadline.com/2019/07/jussie-smollett-opposition-filing-special-prosecutor-hate-crime-attack-empire-1202649049/">Deadline</a> Friday.
Last month, Judge Michael Toomin ruled that Foxx&#8217;s decision to appoint a member of her own office to oversee the case after she &#8220;withdrew&#8221; over potential conflicts of interest was not legal. Toom also empowered the special prosecutor to potentially bring charges against Smollett if the prosecutor has &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48708/breaking-special-prosecutor-approved-smollett-case-ryan-saavedra">reasonable grounds</a>&#8221; to suspect that the actor was guilty of criminal conduct.
In another passage of the filing highlighted by Deadline, Smollett&#8217;s lawyers state that if their request to drop the prosecutor altogether is denied, they want the scope of the investigation to be narrowed. &#8220;In the event the Court is not inclined to grant the Motion, Mr. Smollett, by his attorneys, Geragos &amp; Geragos, respectfully requests that the Court modify the June 21, 2019 Order to clarify that the special prosecutor may investigate and prosecute potential misconduct only, and may not further prosecute Mr. Smollett for the charges that were previously brought and dismissed against him,&#8221; the motion reads.
Toomin&#8217;s decision to appoint a special prosecutor came after Foxx abruptly — and without warning to other city officials — dropped all 16 felony charges against Smollett without requiring an admission of guilt or any additional recompense to the city. The move stunned other officials, including the chief of police and the mayor, and prompted rebukes from legal experts and other state&#8217;s attorneys.
Foxx&#8217;s office later admitted that they still believed the initial charges against Smollett were warranted and that they had confidence in the investigation of the Chicago Police Department, which determined that the actor staged a fake attack on himself.
But Smollett&#8217;s laywers now lay the blame fully on the two brothers, Ola and Abel Osundairo — with whom police say he &#8220;orchestrated&#8221; the faux hate crime against himself — describing their testimony to police in the court filing as &#8220;self-serving.&#8221;
The actor&#8217;s lawyers also suggest that another potential conspirator might be involved. Deadline underscores that the actor&#8217;s lawyers &#8220;cite a possible helper of sorts in an unidentified and previous[ly] unmentioned third man, who witnesses supposedly claim was at the early morning scene.&#8221;
Meanwhile, Smollett&#8217;s two high-profile attorneys are facing a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46316/brothers-who-helped-carry-out-alleged-hate-hoax-emily-zanotti">defamation suit</a> brought by the brothers, and Smollett faces a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45888/city-chicago-files-civil-suit-against-jussie-emily-zanotti">civil suit</a> from the City of Chicago for the $130,000 they say they wasted on investigating the staged &#8220;attack.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48820/chicago-police-release-footage-jussie-smollett-amanda-prestigiacomo">WATCH: Chicago Police Release Footage Of Jussie Smollett Post-&#8216;Attack&#8217; With Prop Noose</a>

Smollett Tries To Get Special Prosecutor Dropped, Blames Brothers, Makes New Claim

On Monday, the Chicago Police Department released bizarre footage of actor Jussie Smollett that was taken in the hours following his report that he was attacked by two Trump supporters for being gay and black in the streets of Chicago. That claim was eventually dismissed by Chicago Police Chief Eddie Johnson as an &#8220;orchestrated&#8221; attack.
In the released footage, Smollett is wearing white rope around his neck; the &#8220;Empire&#8221; star claimed his attackers tied a noose around his neck and poured bleach on him. CBS News <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jussie-smollett-new-police-video-shows-actor-with-rope-around-neck-in-alleged-hate-crime-hoax/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>
&#8220;I just wanted y&#8217;all to see,&#8221; Smollett is heard saying he touches the rope in the police body camera footage taken as officers respond to his home after the Jan. 29 report. He then begins to unwind the rope and says, &#8220;There&#8217;s bleach on me.&#8221; 
He&#8217;s later heard saying he doesn&#8217;t want to be filmed and the body camera is shut off.
</blockquote>
&#8220;Chicago Police enter Jussie Smollett&#8217;s home after report of racist and homophobic attack on Jan. 29. He&#8217;s still wearing a long white rope around his neck,&#8221; CBS Chicago reporter Megan Hickey captioned a tweet containing a portion of the released video.
WATCH:
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Chicago Police enter Jussie Smollett&#8217;s home after report of racist and homophobic attack on Jan. 29. He&#8217;s still wearing a long white rope around his neck. <a href="https://twitter.com/cbschicago?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@cbschicago</a> <a href="https://t.co/OeGIjsT6gb">pic.twitter.com/OeGIjsT6gb</a>
&#8212; Megan Hickey (@MeganHickeyTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/MeganHickeyTV/status/1143281064913375232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 24, 2019</a></blockquote>
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On January 29, Smollett told police he was targeted in downtown Chicago at around 2:30 a.m. by two white Trump supporters for being gay and black, The Daily Wire previously reported. The actor said the two men recognized him from his show &#8220;Empire,&#8221; physically assaulted him, and called him a &#8220;n*****&#8221; and a &#8220;f*****.&#8221; They also allegedly tied a noose around his neck, poured bleach on him, and told him he was in &#8220;MAGA country&#8221; &#8212; a reference to Donald Trump&#8217;s 2016 campaign slogan &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; &#8212; Smollett claimed.
About two weeks before the attack, the actor said he received a threatening letter containing suspicious white powder later identified as crushed Tylenol. The letter had the acronym &#8220;MAGA&#8221; written on the envelope and contained a drawing of a curly-haired stick-figure being hanged with a noose by another stick-figure. It also said in cutout magazine letters: &#8220;You will die black f***.&#8221;
The media and prominent Democrats immediately believed the story.
But after new evidence emerged, Smollett&#8217;s claims did not hold up, according to Chicago Police Chief Eddie Johnson, who told reporters the hate crime was an &#8221;orchestrated&#8221; hoax and the threatening letter was sent by Smollett to himself.
However, after some community service, Smollett was off the hook. That was, until Friday, when a Cook County, Illinois judge ruled that a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate the alleged hate crime hoax, allowing charges to possibly be reinstated, as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48708/breaking-special-prosecutor-approved-smollett-case-ryan-saavedra">reported</a>:
<blockquote>
CBS News Chicago <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/06/21/judge-to-appoint-special-prosecutor-to-jussie-smollett-case-prosecutor-could-reinstate-charges/">reported</a> that the judge made the ruling because &#8220;Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx had no authority to hand [the case] off to her top deputy after announcing she recused herself.&#8221;
TMZ <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2019/06/21/jussie-smollett-special-prosecutor-prosecuted-judge-fake-attack/">noted</a> that the judge &#8220;used a nautical metaphor to describe the screw-ups&#8221; made by Foxx&#8217;s office, saying, &#8220;There was no master on the bridge to guide the ship as it floundered through unchartered waters. And it ultimately lost its bearings.&#8221;
</blockquote>
WATCH:
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WATCH: Chicago Police Release Footage Of Jussie Smollett Post-‘Attack’ With Prop Noose

A Cook County, Illinois judge has ruled that a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate the alleged hate crime hoax case involving actor Jussie Smollett, which would allow charges to be reinstated against Smollett.
CBS News Chicago <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/06/21/judge-to-appoint-special-prosecutor-to-jussie-smollett-case-prosecutor-could-reinstate-charges/">reported</a> that the judge made the ruling because &#8220;Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx had no authority to hand [the case] off to her top deputy after announcing she recused herself.&#8221;
TMZ <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2019/06/21/jussie-smollett-special-prosecutor-prosecuted-judge-fake-attack/">noted</a> that the judge &#8220;used a nautical metaphor to describe the screw-ups&#8221; made by Foxx&#8217;s office, saying, &#8220;There was no master on the bridge to guide the ship as it floundered through unchartered waters. And it ultimately lost its bearings.&#8221;
&#8220;Smollett&#8217;s case in many ways was truly unique,&#8221; Judge Michael Toomin said, according to reporter Megan Crepeau. &#8220;A case that purported to have been brought and supervised by a prosecutor authorized to serve in the stead of the duly elected state&#8217;s attorney but in fact who was appointed to a fictitious office.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
&#8220;Smollett&#8217;s case in many ways was truly unique &#8230; a case that purported to have been brought and supervised by a prosecutor authorized to serve in the stead of the duly elected state&#8217;s attorney but in fact who was appointed to a fictitious office.&#8221;
&#8212; Megan Crepeau (@crepeau) <a href="https://twitter.com/crepeau/status/1142084069884354561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Crepeau added: &#8220;The special prosecutor may further prosecute Smollett, and if they have &#8216;reasonable grounds to believe that any other criminal offense was committed &#8230; special prosecutor may commence the prosecution of any crime as may be suspected.'&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
The special prosecutor may further prosecute Smollett, and if they have &#8220;reasonable grounds to believe that any other criminal offense was committed &#8230; special prosecutor may commence the prosecution of any crime as may be suspected,&#8221; Toomin says
&#8212; Megan Crepeau (@crepeau) <a href="https://twitter.com/crepeau/status/1142085033773207552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Anthony Guglielmi, Chief Communications Officer for the Chicago Police Department, tweeted: &#8220;We stand firmly behind the work of detectives in investigating the fabricated incident reported by Jussie Smollett &amp; #ChicagoPolice will fully cooperate with the court appointed special prosecutor.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
We stand firmly behind the work of detectives in investigating the fabricated incident reported by Jussie Smollett &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChicagoPolice?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ChicagoPolice</a> will fully cooperate with the court appointed special prosecutor. <a href="https://t.co/bCDF0NYfzP">pic.twitter.com/bCDF0NYfzP</a>
&#8212; Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) <a href="https://twitter.com/AJGuglielmi/status/1142097063158718464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
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