The White House has reportedly chastised U.S. Ambassador to Japan <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-chicago-mayor-rahm-emanuel-police-chief-ryan-saavedra" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rahm Emanuel</a>, warning him against mocking China in social media posts.
According to an NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/rahm-emanuel-mock-china-ambassador-rcna105982" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> published on Wednesday, the White House has asked Emanuel to stop posting social media messages that can be seen as &#8220;taunting&#8221; Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Among the apparently problematic posts was one in which Emanuel compared President Xi&#8217;s cabinet to a famous Agatha Christie mystery — clearly suggesting that there was something nefarious behind their sudden absences.
&#8220;President Xi&#8217;s cabinet lineup is now resembling Agatha Christie&#8217;s novel &#8216;And Then There Were None,'&#8221; Emanuel posted via X. &#8220;First, Foreign Minister Qin Gang goes missing, then the Rocket Force commanders go missing, and now Defense Minister Li Shangfu hasn&#8217;t been seen in public for two weeks. Who&#8217;s going to win this unemployment race? China’s youth or Xi&#8217;s cabinet? #MysteryInBeijingBuilding.&#8221;
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President Xi&#39;s cabinet lineup is now resembling Agatha Christie&#39;s novel And Then There Were None. First, Foreign Minister Qin Gang goes missing, then the Rocket Force commanders go missing, and now Defense Minister Li Shangfu hasn&#39;t been seen in public for two weeks. Who&#39;s going…
&mdash; ラーム・エマニュエル駐日米国大使 (@USAmbJapan) <a href="https://twitter.com/USAmbJapan/status/1699991846804390046?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2023</a></blockquote>
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A second post invoked Shakespearean twisted political tragedy &#8220;Hamlet&#8221;: &#8220;As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, &#8216;Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.&#8217; 1st: Defense Minister Li Shangfu hasn’t been seen or heard from in 3 weeks. 2nd: He was a no-show for his trip to Vietnam. Now: He’s absent from his scheduled meeting with the Singaporean Chief of Navy because he was placed on house arrest???&#8230; Might be getting crowded in there. Good news is I heard he’s paid off his mortgage with the Country Garden real estate developers. #MysteryInBeijingBuilding.&#8221;
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As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” 1st: Defense Minister Li Shangfu hasn’t been seen or heard from in 3 weeks. 2nd: He was a no-show for his trip to Vietnam. Now: He’s absent from his scheduled meeting with the Singaporean Chief of Navy…
&mdash; ラーム・エマニュエル駐日米国大使 (@USAmbJapan) <a href="https://twitter.com/USAmbJapan/status/1702493699966484830?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 15, 2023</a></blockquote>
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NBC&#8217;s report said that according to several sources, the Biden administration is less than pleased with Emanuel&#8217;s comments. One official told the outlet that Emanuel&#8217;s posts were &#8220;not in keeping with the message coming out of this building.&#8221;
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President Joe Biden appeared to reinforce that notion during his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-promises-china-partnership-aimed-at-accelerating-the-climate-crisis-and-other-u-n-flubs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent remarks</a> before the United Nations General Assembly, saying that the United States intended to partner with communist-controlled China in efforts to combat climate change.
&#8220;When it comes to China, let me be clear and consistent. We seek to responsibly manage competition between our countries so it does not tip into conflict. I’ve said we are for de-risking — not decoupling — with China,&#8221; Biden said, signaling that the U.S.&#8217; prevailing policy position might be one of deference toward Beijing.
According to the NBC report, Chinese officials were ruffled by Ambassador Emanuel&#8217;s posts — a report that has not been confirmed by the Chinese Embassy and that Emanuel&#8217;s spokesperson told the outlet was &#8220;absolutely not true.&#8221;

Rahm Emanuel

White House Scolds Rahm Emanuel For Mocking China On Social Media: Report

Communist China

Executive

Japan

Joe Biden

Politics

Former Chicago Mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on Sunday slammed the Republican Party for contemplating removing GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) from her leadership position.
&#8220;Is it necessary to stick by Donald Trump here or is it important for the future of the Republican Party for them to move on?&#8221; ABC News host George Stephanopoulos asked.
According to Emanuel, the Republican Party is not &#8220;conservative&#8221; and lacks a conservative “agenda.” He encouraged viewers to read books by former House Speaker John Boehner or former President George W. Bush.
&#8220;That&#8217;s conservative,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;This is a reactionary party built on both resentment and race. There&#8217;s [where] the party&#8217;s going.&#8221;
&#8220;Second, the other piece of this is, you talk about an agenda. In 2020, there was no platform. There [was] no agenda. It&#8217;s about Donald Trump,&#8221; the former mayor said. &#8220;You know, parties exist for two reasons: set out policy principles. They didn&#8217;t have that in 2020. They still don&#8217;t have that. Number two, to win elections. It took 90 years to find a president that could both lose the White House, the House, and the Senate, and Donald Trump did that.&#8221;
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.<a href="https://twitter.com/RahmEmanuel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RahmEmanuel</a> on the Republican Party: &quot;In 2020, there was no platform, there&#39;s no agenda. It&#39;s about Donald Trump.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/zKX7oYoNaR">https://t.co/zKX7oYoNaR</a> <a href="https://t.co/K7f3Q9KNrX">pic.twitter.com/K7f3Q9KNrX</a>
&mdash; This Week (@ThisWeekABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1391383741818417162?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Cheney defended her position on President Donald Trump and the January 6 riot at the Capitol in an opinion piece for The Washington Post. According to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cheney-facing-leadership-threat-says-gop-at-turning-point-in-op-ed">The Daily Wire</a>, Cheney encouraged politicians to stay away from the Department of Justice investigation into the riots while laying out &#8220;the path forward&#8221; she sees for Republicans.
<blockquote>Second, we must support a parallel bipartisan review by a commission with subpoena power to seek and find facts; it will describe for all Americans what happened. This is critical to defeat the misinformation and nonsense circulating in the press and on social media. No currently serving member of Congress — with an eye to the upcoming election cycle — should participate. We should appoint former officials, members of the judiciary and other prominent Americans who can be objective, just as we did after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The commission should be focused on the Jan. 6 attacks. The Black Lives Matter and antifa violence of last summer was illegal and reprehensible, but it is a different problem with a different solution.
Finally, we Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality. In our hearts, we are devoted to the American miracle. We believe in the rule of law, in limited government, in a strong national defense, and in prosperity and opportunity brought by low taxes and fiscally conservative policies.</blockquote>
According to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-liz-cheney-will-likely-be-stripped-of-gop-leadership-role-as-soon-as-may-12-faces-growing-list-of-2022-challengers">The Daily Wire</a>, Cheney seems likely to be stripped of her leadership role sometime soon, and even as early as next week.
“It’s all but certain that as early as next week House Republicans will strip Rep. Liz Cheney of her number-three GOP leadership position — but Cheney faces another major headache back home in Wyoming, as Republicans are plotting to oust her as the state’s lone representative in Congress when she’s up for re-election next year,” <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/liz-cheney-house-republican-leadership-job-wyoming-challenge">Fox News</a> reported.
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has been favored to take Cheney&#8217;s position as the number three Republican. She has received a number of endorsements, including from Trump himself.
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🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 <a href="https://t.co/Rvu79uHUzq">pic.twitter.com/Rvu79uHUzq</a>
&mdash; Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) <a href="https://twitter.com/EliseStefanik/status/1389986790841409542?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 5, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/5-house-republicans-reveal-their-feelings-on-ousting-gop-conference-chair-liz-cheney">5 House Republicans Reveal Their Feelings On Ousting GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney</a>
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Rahm Emanuel: The Current GOP Is ‘Built On Both Resentment And Race’ And Has ‘No Agenda’

ABC News

George Stephanopoulos

Former Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel rejected a suggestion by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that the House would impeach President Trump again should he nominate someone to fill the Supreme Court seat left by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg after she passed away on Friday.
Emanuel, a Democrat, appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” with host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday to discuss the ongoing negotiations and debates over the future of the Supreme Court. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-dies-from-cancer-complications">Ginsburg</a> died on Friday from complications from pancreatic cancer.
Emanuel asserted that Trump should not move forward with nominating a new justice this close to the 2020 election because Trump never won the popular vote, and looks unlikely to do so based on polling. Emanuel said that Trump making such a move would amount to “tyranny of a minority.”
<blockquote>You know, one thing that has not been brought up, George, President Trump has never received the popular vote. And the idea that you’d be nominating a person—not only did you not get the popular vote, it’s impossible at this point based on all the polling for him to actually win the popular vote this time, as well, and that is the tyranny of a minority.
And the idea that he didn’t have the votes, or that somehow he was elected to do this as [Sen. Ted Cruz] says—no he wasn’t. He never even received the popular vote for this effort, and this proves to me once again when you look at [Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell], you look at [Sen. Lindsey Graham], what they said, it’s what I’ve always said about Republicans from Washington: they’re firm in their opinions; it’s their principles they’re flexible on.</blockquote>
The former Chicago mayor attempted to downplay Pelosi’s remarks from an earlier Sunday interview in which she suggested that impeachment is on the table as an “arrow” against Trump. Emanuel responded to a question from Stephanopoulos about potentially impeaching Trump:
<blockquote>The reason I reject that politics—and I understand the speaker, I would never underestimate her to look at all of her efforts and all her tools—but the idea of talking about impeachment as somehow retribution, that is what is corrosive to our political system, that somehow we have to one-up them. I actually think when you look at Ginsburg, one of the things people loved about her was even when she disagreed with Scalia, she had a friendship. And that’s why I think one of the most iconic pictures of this week that’s going to pay to Joe Biden’s benefit is that picture where he elbow-bumped the gentleman in Minnesota who was protesting him, and he said, “I will also be your president.”
That is the America people are yearning for. Not the Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, “Even when we don’t have a majority, we’re gonna ram something through and then destroy the fabric of this country.” It’s not in the spirit of what Ginsburg [and] Scalia’s friendship was, which people yearned for and admired. Even when they disagreed, they heard each other, and that’s what President Clinton talked about, and that’s why that picture of Joe Biden in Minnesota will stand the test of time.</blockquote>
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Rahm Emanuel says impeachment of Trump as retribution for potential confirmation of his SCOTUS pick in lame duck session is “corrosive” politics and GOP ramming a confirmation through is “not in the spirit of what Ginsburg and Scalia’s friendship was.” <a href="https://t.co/xqJquWQNUv">https://t.co/xqJquWQNUv</a> <a href="https://t.co/u5t3hvacpe">pic.twitter.com/u5t3hvacpe</a>
&mdash; This Week (@ThisWeekABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1307704608790319104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 20, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Pelosi had refused to dismiss impeachment as a potential route forward for House Democrats during an interview with Stephanopoulos earlier.
As The Daily Wire reports:
<blockquote>ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, a Democrat, asked Pelosi about the possibility that Democrats could impeach Trump to stop him from filling the seat.
“Some have mentioned the possibility, if they try to push through a nominee in a lame duck session, that you and the House could move to impeach President Trump or Attorney General Barr as a way of stalling and preventing the Senate from acting on this nomination,” Stephanopoulos said.
Pelosi responded, “Well, we have our options. We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now.”</blockquote>

Former Chicago Mayor Slams Pelosi Suggestion Of Impeaching Trump: ‘Corrosive To Our Political System’

Donald Trump

Nancy Pelosi

Supreme Court

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

Chicago

Hate Crime

Hoax

Jussie Smollett

Monday night, Chicago hosted the annual James Beard Foundation Awards &#8212; the Oscars of the restaurant world &#8212; and Chicago&#8217;s outgoing mayor Rahm Emanuel focused less on fine dining in his final speech to the food elite and more on President Donald Trump.
Speaking to the Beard Foundation audience, Emanuel chastised Trump for his plebeian taste in cuisine, lashing out at the president over his penchant for McDonalds&#8217; and criticizing Trump for serving fast food at two White House banquets for college athletes.
&#8220;Rahm Emanuel delivered his final speech of his mayoral term at the gala and took the opportunity to rip President Donald Trump. Emanuel referred to Trump&#8217;s practice of serving fast food to championship sports teams,&#8221; <a href="https://chicago.eater.com/2019/5/7/18535361/james-beard-awards-gala-2019-photos-red-carpet-rahm-trump">Eater reported</a>.
&#8220;Fast food does not belong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,&#8221; Emanuel said, addressing Trump directly. &#8220;And besides that you don&#8217;t belong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.&#8221;
Emanuel later added that he made the comments without regard for the &#8220;public&#8217;s perception,&#8221; since he&#8217;s just a few short weeks away from leaving office and is now on a &#8220;farewell tour.&#8221;
Trump, a noted fan of fried chicken and cheeseburgers, served a fast food buffet to the national champion Clemson football team back in January when the government was in a partial showdown. The spread featured food from McDonald&#8217;s and Wendy&#8217;s which Trump paid for out of his own pocket, and apparently delighted the players, who are on strict diets during football season.
The buffet setup went over so well with the college athletes that Trump repeated the performance with two other championship sports teams. But while the college students may have enjoyed the decidedly downmarket feast, leftists were left scandalized by what they considered lowbrow fare. Rahm Emanuel was clearly no exception.
Luckily, Trump isn&#8217;t one to take advice from Emanuel on much of anything, let alone cuisine. Unfortunately for Emanuel, fairly soon, few people will be angling for his advice.
After facing down financial problems in Chicago, Emanuel is leaving office as an unpopular mayor &#8212; in fact, Emanuel could have competed for a third term but chose to leave office, perhaps suspecting he wasn&#8217;t going to survive another election. On his way out, the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-rahm-emanuel-city-club-speech-20190502-story.html">Chicago Tribune reports</a>, Emanuel is on a mission to rehabilitate his image, countering allegations that he was a &#8220;1% mayor&#8221; who focused more on Chicago&#8217;s wealthy than on Chicago&#8217;s needy.
Former city official Lori Lightfoot will replace Emanuel, becoming the first openly gay mayor of Chicago and the city&#8217;s first African-American female leader. Lightfoot ran as an outsider to the Chicago Democratic machine and, while she served under Emanuel, is less connected to Democrats currently in office than her opponents for the job. This week, Lightfoot has been on an introductory tour in Washington, D.C., meeting members of both parties. Tuesday, she spent time with both Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and White House advisor Ivanka Trump.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Rips President Donald Trump Over Fast Food Banquets

The City of Chicago has filed a civil suit against &#8220;Empire&#8221; actor Jussie Smollett, seeking to recover the cost of Chicago Police Department overtime hours expended searching for the perpetrators of a &#8220;hate crime&#8221; that Smollett allegedly perpetrated against himself.
<a href="https://abc7chicago.com/city-sues-jussie-smollett-for-cost-of-investigating-alleged-staged-attack-/5244143/">Chicago&#8217;s ABC affiliate</a> reports that the city&#8217;s Law Department has filed a complaint requesting damages in the amount of $130,106.15. A spokesperson for the Law Department told ABC7 that the lawsuit &#8220;pursues the full measure of damages allowed under the false statements ordinance. This follows his refusal to reimburse the City of Chicago for the cost of police overtime spent investigating his false police report on January 29, 2019.&#8221;
The Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney&#8217;s office dropped 17 charges against Smollett stemming from the January 29, 2019 incident, in which Smollett says he was attacked by two Donald Trump supporters on his way home from getting a sandwich at a nearby Subway sandwich shop around 2 a.m. Initially, Smollett was charged with one count of filing a false police report, but a grand jury added an additional 16 counts &#8212; one for each lie they believe Smollett told investigators over the course of two separate interviews.
Smollett was allowed to walk free on a &#8220;modified plea bargain&#8221; that allowed him to avoid trial by serving 16 hours of community service and forfeiting a $10,000 bond. Smollett was not required to admit responsibility as part of the deal with prosecutors, and has since claimed innocence of all charges. The State&#8217;s Attorney&#8217;s office, which has faced a wave of criticism over the Smollett case, maintains that the deal does not, in fact, absolve Smollett.
After discovering that the State&#8217;s Attorney intended to drop the charges, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel suggested that Smollett could reimburse the city for costs associated with investigating the &#8220;hate crime,&#8221; and later, the city&#8217;s Law Department issued an official request for just over $130,000.
Smollett&#8217;s lawyers rebuffed the demand, claiming that it was Smollett who was owed an apology.
Thursday afternoon, the city of Chicago made good on threats to enforce the demand.
The Law Department pulled no punches in their complaint, alleging that the &#8220;Defendant knew his attackers and orchestrated the purported attack himself. Later, when police confronted him with evidence about his attackers, he still refused to disclose his involvement in planning the attack.&#8221;
The city then lays out the basics of the police case against Smollett, noting that, &#8220;[o]n the evening of January 28, 2019, Defendant&#8217;s flight into Chicago was delayed, and he called Abel (Osundairo) telling him he needed to delay the staged attack, and Abel agreed,&#8221; and alleging that Smollett employed the Osundairo brothers because &#8220;he was unhappy with the way his employers handled the racist and homophobic letter he had allegedly received and as a result wanted to stage an attack.&#8221;
The complaint also catalogues changes in Smollett&#8217;s story.
&#8220;At no point did Defendant inform police that he knew his attackers or recognized their appearance or voices,&#8221; the complaint alleges, going on to reveal that in his appearance on Good Morning America, he claimed to have identified his attackers in a surveillance photo issued by Chicago Police. In a subsequent interview, he again identified the men in the photo as his assailants, only to be informed that they were the Osundairo brothers.
Then things got hairy, the CPD said, according to the complaint. &#8220;Defendant made further false statements claiming his only relationship with the Brothers was as trainers and acquaintances and that they could not have been his attackers.&#8221;
Last week, Smollett&#8217;s lawyers said they would welcome the civil suit, and that if the city filed to recover the $130,000, they would depose both Emanuel and Chicago&#8217;s Police Superintendent, Eddie Johnson. They also said they would request the complete police investigation file, which the Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney took great pains to suppress in court.
The city may turn out to be the lucky party, though. The civil suit will likely force the prosecutor&#8217;s office to unseal the file &#8212; at least for parties to the case &#8212; and the city will likely get to depose Smollett under oath about the January 29 incident and statements made to police.

City Of Chicago Files Civil Suit Against Jussie Smollett For Refusing To Reimburse Police Costs

ABC 7 Chicago has been investigating Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx ever since her office decided to drop the 16 felony charges against Jussie Smollett last month and, through the course of their investigation, the local news station found that Foxx let a convicted killer off the hook when she first took office.
16-year-old Derrion Albert was killed in a gang fight when he was walking home from school in 2009. Prosecutors charged four teens with Albert&#8217;s death, three of whom were convicted of murder and one pled guilty. <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/cook-county-states-attorney-kim-foxx-lets-derrion-albert-killer-off-the-hook/5240786/">ABC 7 Chicago</a> reports:
<blockquote>
But one teen &#8211; known then as &#8220;D.J.&#8221; &#8211; was 14 at the time. Prosecutors say he punched Albert and knocked him down, saying that he signed &#8220;his death certificate.&#8221;
Prosecutors decided to charge him as a juvenile in a special kind of case called an Extended Jurisdiction Juvenile prosecution or EJJ.
That means although &#8220;D.J.&#8221; was convicted as a juvenile &#8211; he was also sentenced to 30 years as an adult on the underlying offense of murder. However, that sentence would be stayed and not enforced unless he was convicted of a new felony after being released from juvenile custody. 
</blockquote>
According to Albert&#8217;s family, then-Assistant State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx made the decision to go with the EJJ prosecution and encouraged them to accept the decision.
&#8220;Kim Foxx kept telling us that was the best way to go, that way we have some kind of, the safety net,&#8221; Albert&#8217;s mother Anjanette said. &#8220;That way if he got in trouble he goes back, that&#8217;s what it is.&#8221;
Six years later and out of juvenile prison, &#8220;D.J.&#8221; &#8212; now 20-year-old Dionte Johnson &#8212; was arrested and charged with an aggravated felony.
ABC 7 Chicago reports that prosecutors sought to &#8220;revoke stay of his adult sentence,&#8221; meaning that Johnson would face the 30 years in prison from the EJJ prosecution in his previous case if convicted.
&#8220;Johnson was convicted of the felony on November 8 2016, Election Day,&#8221; ABC 7 Chicago added. &#8220;The same day that Foxx, who supervised the Albert case convictions, won the State&#8217;s Attorney&#8217;s race. Soon after, the Albert family says they were called to a meeting at the juvenile court building.&#8221;
The family was told that Foxx made the decision to not pursue the 30-year prison sentence from the EJJ that Foxx was responsible for pursuing in the first place.
&#8220;Kim Foxx decided not to go any further with this to just, it&#8217;s over,&#8221; Anjanette said. &#8220;She&#8217;s going to drop it and he&#8217;s going to get out and there was nothing that we could do.&#8221;
Anjanette said that she repeatedly reached out to Foxx and that Foxx never bothered to respond to her calls.
&#8220;I felt like she sat in our face, she cried with us, she hugged us and then you turn around and let this murderer, I don&#8217;t care how old he is, he was convicted of first-degree murder,&#8221; Anjanette said. &#8220;My son is not here anymore and she gave us all this hope and she promised us that this was going to be OK. And it didn&#8217;t turn out like that.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t have anything to say to Kim Foxx,&#8221; Anjanette continued, &#8220;The person that I thought that she was, her heart, her kindness the way that she was with us in court, that&#8217;s, I don&#8217;t never want to see her again. Never.&#8221;
When Foxx ran for office, her campaign &#8220;was bankrolled in large part by Illinois Safety &amp; Justice, which was funded with $408,000 from Democratic mega-donor George Soros, part of an effort in at least 20 jurisdictions to elect progressive and minority prosecutors following the 2014 Ferguson shooting,&#8221; <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/27/jussie-smollett-indefensible-deal-lands-kim-foxx-s/">The Washington Times</a> reported.
Chicago&#8217;s police union said in a March 8 Facebook post: &#8220;Foxx&#8217;s election was part of a national campaign by the radical left to impose their people in key prosecutor spots, a move to fight the system from within.&#8221;
At the end of last month, ABC 7 Chicago reported that the FBI was reviewing the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of the charges against Smollett.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
BREAKING: Two law enforcement officials briefed on the matter tell <a href="https://twitter.com/ABC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ABC</a> the FBI is *reviewing* circumstances surrounding dismissal of criminal charges against Jussie Smollett. ABC News is told this is not an investigation. It is a &#8220;review&#8221; or &#8220;inquiry&#8221;.
&#8212; Rob Elgas (@RobElgasABC7) <a href="https://twitter.com/RobElgasABC7/status/1111027333740269568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
After the charges against Smollett were dropped, Democrat Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson slammed Smollett and Foxx&#8217;s office for the decision.
&#8220;I&#8217;m sure we all know what occurred this morning,&#8221; Johnson <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-jussie-smollett-emanuel-johnson-transcript-20190326-story.html">said</a>. &#8220;My personal opinion is that you all know where I stand on this. Do I think justice was served? No.&#8221;
&#8220;I think this city is still owed an apology,&#8221; Johnson continued. &#8220;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.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;ve heard that they wanted their day in court with TV cameras so America could know the truth,&#8221; Johnson added. &#8220;And now they chose to hide behind secrecy and broker a deal to circumvent the judicial system.&#8221;
Emanuel slammed the system even harder than Johnson did, saying, &#8220;This is a whitewash of justice.&#8221;
&#8220;You cannot have, because of a person&#8217;s position, one set of rules apply to them and another set of rules apply to everybody else,&#8221; Emanuel said. &#8220;In another way, you&#8217;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&#8217;s getting treated in a way that nobody else would ever &#8230; get close to this type of treatment.&#8221;
&#8220;The city saw its reputation dragged through the mud,&#8221; Emanuel added. &#8220;This is without of doubt a whitewash of justice and sends a clear message that if you&#8217;re in a position of influence and power, you&#8217;ll get treated one way, other people will be treated another way. There is no accountability in the system. It is wrong, full stop.&#8221;
&#8220;I wanted to say one other thing,&#8221; Emanuel said. &#8220;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 &#8212; and I want to remind you &#8212; this is not the superintendent&#8217;s word against his. The grand jury, a sliver of the evidence and they came to a conclusion, as did the state&#8217;s attorney&#8217;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&#8217;s done.&#8221;

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx Let Convicted Killer Off Hook

Chicago&#8217;s new mayor, Lori Lightfoot, hasn&#8217;t even been sworn in yet, and she already has a top priority: figuring out exactly what is going on in Cook County Prosecutor Kim Foxx&#8217;s office.
Lightfoot, who won Chicago&#8217;s mayoral election by a near-50 point margin on Tuesday, is the city&#8217;s first black female (and first openly gay) mayor. She campaigned largely as an outsider to the Chicago machine. Lightfoot is, herself, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, who served at the head of Chicago&#8217;s Police Board and Police Accountability Board after leaving legal practice for public service.
Foxx and others had likely hoped the change in leadership, from outgoing mayor Rahm Emanuel to incoming mayor Lightfoot, might take some of the pressure off the prosecutor&#8217;s office, which has been under a microscope since dropping 17 charges leveled against &#8220;Empire&#8221; star Jussie Smollett for allegedly faking a hate crime back in January.
No such luck.
In an interview with MSNBC Wednesday, Lightfoot pledged to get to the bottom of the Smollett case, and suggested that Smollett needs to be &#8220;held accountable.&#8221;
&#8220;The State&#8217;s Attorney&#8217;s office here which made the decision unilaterally to drop the charges has to give a much more fulsome explanation,&#8221; Lightfoot said, <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/chicago-mayor-elect-lori-lightfoot-says-it-looked-like-jussie-smollett-staged-a-hoax/">according to The Wrap</a>.
&#8220;We cannot create the perception that if you&#8217;re rich or famous or both that you got one set of justice and for everybody else, it&#8217;s something much harsher. That won&#8217;t do, and we need to make sure that we have a criminal justice system that has integrity,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;The state&#8217;s attorney&#8217;s office has to provide more information about the rationale for the decision to drop the charges.&#8221;
When asked about the evidence for prosecuting Smollett, and whether she believed Smollett was innocent of the charges, which came from both the prosecutor&#8217;s office and a grand jury, Lightfoot was non-committal.
&#8220;I saw &#8230; a very compelling case,&#8221; she said, &#8220;with videotapes, witness statements, and other information that looked like he had staged a hoax. And if that happens, he&#8217;s got to be held accountable.&#8221;
Lightfoot&#8217;s words echo those of current mayor Rahm Emanuel, who called Foxx&#8217;s office&#8217;s actions in dropping the case against Smollett a &#8220;whitewash of justice.&#8221; Emanuel and Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson have repeatedly decried the decision, and the Chicago Department of Law has issued a $130,000 bill to Smollett for restitution to pay for police overtime hours racked up investigating Smollett&#8217;s &#8220;hate crime.&#8221;
Smollett has so far, through his attorneys, refused to pay.
Lightfoot, of course, has no reason to stand behind Foxx. Lightfoot&#8217;s opponent in the recent mayor race was Cook County board president Toni Preckwinkle, a friend and mentor to Foxx, who supported Foxx&#8217;s campaign for State&#8217;s Attorney (Foxx was Preckwinkle&#8217;s chief of staff during Preckwinkle&#8217;s first years leading Cook County). Foxx is far more closely aligned with the existing Democratic &#8220;machine&#8221; in Chicago, and Lightfoot clearly wants to prove she&#8217;s an independent mayor.
The situation does not bode well for Foxx. In addition to Lightfoot&#8217;s lack of confidence, police chiefs from nearly every jurisdiction in Cook County <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/cook-co-police-chiefs-to-announce-they-have-no-confidence-in-kim-foxx-/5233520/">signed a letter expressing &#8220;no confidence</a>&#8221; in the Cook County prosecutor&#8217;s office. Foxx&#8217;s Smollett decision is just the tip of the iceberg; police are now concerned that the prosecutor&#8217;s kinder, gentler treatment of criminals has made Cook County less safe, especially in light of the death of an off-duty Chicago Police officer at the hands of a man who was released from probation despite having a violent past.

New Chicago Mayor’s First Order Of Business: Getting To The Bottom Of The Jussie Smollett Case

On Friday, appearing with Fox News&#8217; &#8220;The Story&#8221; with host Martha MacCallum to discuss his new book, &#8220;The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great,&#8221; Daily Wire Editor-In-Chief Ben Shapiro spoke of the recent furor triggered when the left-wing British publication The Economist first insultingly referred to him as &#8220;alt-right,&#8221; then apologized, only to change the adjective to &#8220;radical conservative.&#8221; Shapiro channeled Democratic presidential candidate Beto O&#8217;Rourke, saying, &#8220;I&#8217;m rad, dude. I can skateboard and everything, brah.&#8221;
MacCallum began by citing President Trump&#8217;s remarks on Thursday at a rally in Michigan in which Trump weighed in on the Jussie Smollett saga. Trump&#8217;s remarks prompted the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to state that Trump&#8217;s &#8220;silence on the rise of white nationalism across the country only signals his complicity,&#8221; adding, &#8220;Where was the president&#8217;s call for an investigation when white nationalists marched across the campus of the University of Virginia?&#8221;
MacCallum also noted Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel suggesting Trump and the atmosphere he has created were the reason that Smollett allegedly faked his hate crime.
MacCallum introduced Shapiro and his new book, commenting, &#8220;It&#8217;s a New York Times best seller; they cannot keep it in stock.&#8221; She asked Shapiro what he thought about the CBC and Emanuel&#8217;s comments regarding President Trump.
Shapiro replied:
<blockquote>
Well, it&#8217;s obviously untrue. We&#8217;ve seen racial hoaxes before going all the way back to Al Sharpton in the 1980s. The story here is that there is an actor who wanted to increase pay, according to the Chicago Police Department, and so he decided to perpetuate a racial hoax and slander half the country in process, believing that it would make him more popular and more marketable, particularly with the people in Hollywood. That&#8217;s the entire story, and he didn&#8217;t mind if he slandered the Chicago Police Department; he didn&#8217;t mind if he slandered Rahm Emanuel, the city of Chicago. By the way, it is worth noting that the CBC representative saying that President Trump&#8217;s feds didn&#8217;t investigate Charlottesville &#8212; that&#8217;s just not true. The FBI did investigate Charlottesville. The DOJ did an investigation of Charlottesville as well. So that is just factually false.
</blockquote>
MacCallum played a clip of Anthony Anderson, the host of the NAACP awards, saying of Smollett&#8217;s nomination for an award, &#8220;I hope he wins. I&#8217;m happy for him that the system worked for him, in his favor, because the system isn&#8217;t always fair, especially for people of color.&#8221; MacCallum commented, &#8220;I think that&#8217;s very interesting. He said the system worked &#8216;for him in his favor&#8217; because the system isn&#8217;t always fair.&#8221; She added, &#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of ways you could read into that statement.&#8221;
Shapiro commented:
<blockquote>
It seems like what he&#8217;s trying to say is that social justice ought to trump individual justice. In other words, he believes the criminal justice system is biased presumably against black people and gay people, and Jussie Smollett happens to be black and gay, and therefore, even though he&#8217;s obviously guilty by all available evidence and according to the prosecutor&#8217;s office that just dismissed the charges, he&#8217;s guilty, despite that, he should be let of the hook because it&#8217;s sort of pay back for the system not working for other people. That is a fundamental violation of principles of justice. If somebody is guilty of a crime, they ought to do the time, regardless of their intersectional credentials being in order.
</blockquote>
MacCallum asked why Smollett is not pressing for an investigation considering he had alleged he was the victim of a hate crime. She then referred to Smollett&#8217;s attorney suggesting that the Nigerian brothers allegedly involved in the attack were wearing white face underneath the mask at the time of the alleged attack.
Shapiro quipped, &#8220;My theory of the crime is it was actually Virginia Governor Ralph Northam dressed in black face and then dressed in white face on top of the black face. That&#8217;s my going theory of the crime.&#8221;
That caused MacCallum to laugh, then shift to how the British magazine &#8220;The Economist&#8221; labeled Shapiro &#8220;alt-right,&#8221; and then, after Shapiro fired back, apologized and changed the appellation to &#8220;radical conservative.&#8221;
Shapiro replied, &#8220;There&#8217;s no such thing as a &#8216;regular conservative,&#8217; so frankly, I&#8217;m embracing the title. It&#8217;s like Beto O&#8217;Rourke, &#8216;I&#8217;m rad, dude. I can skateboard and everything, brah.&#8217;&#8221;
That triggered more laughter from MacCallum.
Shapiro continued: &#8220;What is amazing about it is to be ignorant enough to call me a member of the alt-right when I have probably been the leading antagonist of the alt-right for at least the last four years. I was their number one target online, according to the ADL in 2016. I still have to hire security to walk back and forth to synagogue because of the alt-right. To label me that just demonstrates either the ignorance or the malice of members of the media who don&#8217;t want to do a simple Google search.&#8221;
MacCallum said, &#8220;There&#8217;s definitely a fascination with you. When you read this article, they&#8217;re trying to figure out why you&#8217;re so popular, why do kids on college campuses care what this guy has to say; they talk about how you&#8217;re impeccably dressed, and you&#8217;re sharp in every way. They can&#8217;t figure it out, Ben.&#8221;
Shapiro joked, &#8220;Obviously, it is because of my great handsomeness and physical size. I&#8217;m very intimidating and people are just attracted to me the same way that they would be attracted to Tom Cruise. That&#8217;s just who I am; that&#8217;s what my wife tells me anyway.&#8221;
MacCallum agreed, &#8220;As she should. All wives should tell their husbands that.&#8221; She continued, &#8220;Eric Holder said the president wants to go back to when America was great, and Holder saw that as a racist assessment in the president&#8217;s eyes. You talk a lot about what makes the idea of America great in your book. So what would you say to him about that comment?&#8221;
Shapiro said bluntly:
<blockquote>
It&#8217;s an asinine comment. Really there are two views of the United States. View number one is that the United States is founded on eternal, true, immutable and good principles, and we haven&#8217;t always lived up to those principles, but the story of America is that the foundational philosophy of the country is inherently rooted in human nature and natural law and God&#8217;s creation. And that&#8217;s what American philosophy&#8217;s about. Again, it&#8217;s a job of trying to expand that promise to all Americans.
And then there&#8217;s the view of Eric Holder which is that America is founded on racial hierarchy and that all of these ideas of Western civilization are essentially a façade for perpetuating this evil power hierarchy. Well, if you feel that way, you have to rip up American civilization at its roots. I don&#8217;t think most Americans believe that; I think most Americans do believe that America has been great in the past. There&#8217;s no point at which America was &#8220;better across the board&#8221; for everyone, but there are certainly moments in American history that we can point to. Was America not great when we liberated Europe? Was America not great when Martin Luther King was speaking on the Mall in Washington? Was America not great when we were defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War or when we were creating such prosperity that 80% of world&#8217;s population was lifted out of abject poverty since 1980? It seems like America was great all of those times.
</blockquote>
MacCallum concluded, &#8220;The book is number one and they can&#8217;t keep it on the shelves. Congratulations.&#8221;
Watch below:
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WATCH: Shapiro Channels Beto O’Rourke After Being Called ‘Radical Conservative’

Alt-Right

Ben Shapiro

Ralph Northam

Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, uttered a famous phrase while he was former president Barack Obama&#8217;s White House chief of staff. &#8220;Never let a tragedy go to waste,&#8221; he said, which was quickly embraced by Democrats and has become a sort of motto for the party.
Now, Emanuel is back in the news, supposedly furious about what actor Jussie Smollett perpetrated in his city. Smollett, an actor, claimed he was attacked by two white men who yelled &#8220;This is MAGA country,&#8221; a reference to President Trump&#8217;s campaign slogan, &#8220;Make Amerca Great Again.&#8221;
The allegations, though, imploded. Eventually, Smollett was indicted by a grand jury on 16 charges, including making false statements to police. All that was wiped away this week by a Chicago prosecutor, who suddenly announced she was dropping all charges and sealing the case.
In the end, there&#8217;s clearly just one person to blame for the whole debacle. No, not the man who allegedly made up the whole story &#8212; but the President of the United States!
&#8220;Let me be clear about something. The only reason Jussie Smollett thought he could take advantage of a hoax about a hate crime is because of the environment, the toxic environment that Donald Trump created,&#8221; Emanuel told a group of reporters on Thursday.
&#8220;This is a president who drew a moral equivalency between people who are trying to perpetuate bigotry and those who are trying to fight bigotry.&#8221;
Emanuel told Trump to stay out of Chicago&#8217;s affairs. &#8220;My recommendation is the president go to Opening Day baseball, sit on the sidelines and stay out of this,&#8221; he said.
Trump on Thursday said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice will both investigate the &#8220;outrageous&#8221; decision by Chicago prosecutors to drop all charges in the Jussie Smollett &#8220;hate hoax&#8221; case.
&#8220;FBI &amp; DOJ to review the outrageous Jussie Smollett case in Chicago. It is an embarrassment to our Nation!&#8221; Trump wrote on Twitter.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
FBI &amp; DOJ to review the outrageous Jussie Smollett case in Chicago. It is an embarrassment to our Nation!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1111214993293357056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Trump made the vow shortly after Chicago&#8217;s WLS-TV reported that the FBI has launched an investigation into the decision to drop the 16-count indictment against the &#8220;Empire&#8221; TV show actor.
Smollett was indicted by a grand jury in Chicago on 16 felony counts after he allegedly lied to police about being the victim of a racist and homophobic hate crime. The actor said two men attacked him at 2 p.m. when he was walking home from a sandwich shop, poured what he believed to be bleach on him, and placed a rope around his neck.
Soon after Smollett made his initial allegations, he added another element, saying his alleged attackers yelled, &#8220;This is MAGA country.&#8221;
Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx on Tuesday announced that her office was dropping the case. Smollett was allowed to walk free after forfeiting his $10,000 bail and performing 16 hours of community service, to which Foxx said, &#8220;I believe this is a just outcome based on the circumstances.&#8221;
Smollett later declared that the state&#8217;s attorney&#8217;s decision exonerated him.
&#8220;I want you to know that not for a moment was it in vain. I have been truthful and consistent on every level since day one. I would not be my mother&#8217;s son if I was capable of one drop of what I&#8217;m accused of. This has been an incredibly difficult time. Honestly one of the worst of my entire life. But I am a man of faith and I am a man that has knowledge of my history and I would not bring my family, our lives or the movement through a fire like this, I just wouldn&#8217;t,&#8221; he said.
But on that score, Emanuel thinks much more like most Americans do, saying Smollett owes Chicago the $130,000 police spent on investigating what are now widely believed to be false accusations.
&#8220;Given that he doesn&#8217;t feel any sense of contrition and remorse,&#8221; Emanuel said, &#8220;my recommendation is that when he writes the check, in the memo section, he can put the words, &#8216;I&#8217;m accountable for the hoax.'&#8221;

Chicago Mayor Pins Blame For Smollett Race Hate ‘Hoax’ On Toxic Culture Created By…Trump?

Barack Obama

In an interview with WGN News Thursday morning, Chicago&#8217;s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, said that he and the Chicago Police Department are compiling a bill to send to &#8220;Empire&#8221; star Jussie Smollett so that he can reimburse the city for the cost of investigating his alleged hate crime.
&#8220;The Corporation Counsel, once they &#8230; feel good about the numbers will then send a letter to Jussie Smollett and his attorneys trying to recoup those costs for the city,&#8221; Emanuel <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wgnradio/videos/2354296508141116/">told WGN&#8217;s morning radio hosts</a>.
The mayor expanded on his comments for reporters at a later press conference, insisting that he is dead serious about sending Smollett an invoice, and noting that he &#8220;expects Smollett and his legal team to write a check,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Chicago-Mayor-Says-City-Will-Send-Smollett-Bill-for-Investigation-507779651.html?fbclid=IwAR1bFsatozKvzxtx7mxHNgE_ongc4_F8aUwU_Zxf9Q8FDLo_a7JPWsfSOv4">according to Chicago&#8217;s NBC affiliate</a>.
&#8220;The police are assembling the cost [of the investigation],&#8221; Emanuel said. &#8220;They&#8217;ll do that and then the corporation counsel of the city of Chicago will communicate to Jussie Smollett and his legal team about recouping that cost in that effort. And, given that he doesn&#8217;t feel any sense of contrition and remorse, my recommendation is when he writes the check, in the memo section he can put the word, &#8216;I&#8217;m accountable&#8217; for the hoax.&#8221;
&#8220;The finance is a piece of it and an acknowledgement that what he did at every level was wrong,&#8221; Emanuel added.
Estimates put the cost of the Chicago Police Department investigation in the six figures. As part of his off-the-books &#8220;deal&#8221; with the Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney, however, Smollett has only ponied up $10,000 &#8212; the 10% surety he put down when he was bonded out of court on his first charge.
Both Emanuel and Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson have maintained that the Cook County prosecutor&#8217;s decision to have Smollett &#8220;serve time&#8221; on his charges without admitting guilt &#8220;whitewashed&#8221; justice and allowed Smollett, whom police believe orchestrated his own hate crime attack back in January, to claim that he&#8217;s innocent of all charges, even though the prosecutor&#8217;s office says he was not in any way exonerated.
In an interview with Good Morning America Wednesday, Emanuel said that Smollett is &#8220;making a fool of all of us,&#8221; that the actor has &#8220;abused the city of Chicago,&#8221; and turned the city&#8217;s values &#8220;upside down and inside out.&#8221;
Smollett&#8217;s attorneys fired back almost immediately in a statement directed at Emanuel.
&#8220;It is the mayor and the police chief who owe Jussie &#8212; owe him an apology &#8212; for dragging an innocent man&#8217;s character through the mud. Jussie has paid enough,&#8221; Smollett&#8217;s attorneys said.
The city of Chicago is unlikely to be able to collect on such a bill, but that doesn&#8217;t mean the number won&#8217;t make headlines. In the time between Smollett&#8217;s first report to police about his attack (January 29th) and when he was first charged with with filing a false police report (February 20th), <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/chicago-shootings-2019-guns-violence-1338983">more than 90 people were shot in the city of Chicago</a>, including <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/baby-shot-in-the-head-fights-for-life;-$35k-reward-offered-/5131749/">a one-year-old boy, Dejohn Irving</a>, who was shot in the head and remains in critical condition.
Eighteen people were killed.
Although the Chicago Police Department is one of the nation&#8217;s largest, there&#8217;s no doubt that removing at least a dozen detectives from duty to track down Smollett&#8217;s Trump-slogan spouting attackers made an impact on how efficient the city was at responding to and solving other crimes and both Emanuel and Johnson seem to want Smollett, who insists he did nothing wrong, to understand precisely how much his alleged fake hate crime cost the real victims of violence in Chicago.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Says He’s Putting Together A Bill To Send To Jussie Smollett

Shooting

After her office shocked the country by suddenly dropping all felony charges against former &#8220;Empire&#8221; star Jussie Smollett and sealing all records of the case, Chicago State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx and her office have officially lost the confidence of the Chicago police, the Democratic Chicago mayor, and now the editors of the city&#8217;s revered paper, the Chicago Tribune.
In a stunning development Tuesday, Foxx&#8217;s office abruptly announced that they were dropping all charges against Smollett and burying the case. &#8220;After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollet&#8217;s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution,&#8221; Foxx&#8217;s office <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45115/shock-controversial-chicago-prosecutor-drops-emily-zanotti">announced</a> without any prior warning to police or the mayor Tuesday.
The actions of Foxx&#8217;s office, said the editors of the Chicago Tribune in an editorial Tuesday, are simply &#8220;<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-jussie-smollett-hoax-rahm-emanuel-20190326-story.html">indefensible</a>.&#8221;
&#8220;After State&#8217;s Attorney Kim Foxx makes errors of judgment that lead her to recuse herself, after Chicago detectives expend thousands of man hours doing meticulous work, after police Superintendent Eddie Johnson excoriates Smollett publicly for dragging the city&#8217;s name through the mud, after Foxx&#8217;s prosecutors take the case before a grand jury, after the grand jurors indict<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-jussie-smollett-indicted-20190308-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a>Smollett<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-jussie-smollett-indicted-20190308-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a>on 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct &#8230; after all that, Cook County prosecutors shock Chicagoans and the rest of the country on Tuesday with news that they&#8217;re dropping all charges against Smollett,&#8221; the paper&#8217;s editors write. &#8220;That is, Foxx&#8217;s office essentially says: Never mind. No big deal. Move along.&#8220;
&#8220;It&#8217;s an indefensible decision, a deal hashed out in secret, with &#8212; this is outrageous &#8212; Smollett not even required to take ownership of his apparent hoax,&#8221; they continue. &#8220;Not even required to apologize for allegedly exploiting hate crime laws. And not even required to reimburse Chicago taxpayers for the enormous cost of this investigation.&#8221; The result is Chicagoans and their fellow Americans feeling &#8220;bamboozled by Foxx&#8217;s office, and used by Smollett.&#8221;
Smollett and his lawyers &#8212; including Mark Geragos, who has been <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fired-cnn-commentator-mark-geragos-defends-jussie-smollett-in-first-tweet-since-michael-avenattis-arrest">named</a> as a co-conspirator in federal charges against Michael Avenatti &#8212; celebrated the state&#8217;s attorney&#8217;s decision as having completely &#8220;exonerated&#8221; the actor. Smollett declared in a brief statement Tuesday that he is the true victim here, just as he has insisted all along.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve been truthful and consistent on every single level since day one,&#8221; Smollett insisted in a press conference Tuesday. &#8220;This has been an incredibly difficult time, honestly one of the worst of my entire life.&#8221; He went on to promise to &#8220;continue to fight for the justice, equality, and betterment of marginalized people everywhere.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Jussie Smollett: &#8220;I&#8217;ve been truthful and consistent on every single level since day one&#8230;This has been an incredibly difficult time, honestly one of the worst of my entire life&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/kNQqMavks3">https://t.co/kNQqMavks3</a> <a href="https://t.co/j8JakzSF4X">pic.twitter.com/j8JakzSF4X</a>
&#8212; CBS News (@CBSNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1110575629475463168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
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In a joint press conference Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson issued blistering condemnations of the actions of Foxx&#8217;s office. &#8220;This is a whitewash of justice,&#8221; Emanuel declared. &#8220;Where is the accountability in the system? You cannot have, because of a person&#8217;s position, one set of rules apply to them and another set of rules apply to everybody else.&#8221;
The Tribune agrees with Emanuel and Johnson: Smollett needed to be held accountable. &#8220;Accountability, or lack of it, is at the heart of Tuesday&#8217;s stunner. Smollett walks, merely forfeiting the $10,000 cash bond he had posted.&#8221;
After instant, massive backlash, First Assistant State&#8217;s Attorney Joe Magats issued a &#8220;clarification&#8221; to the press: &#8220;We didn&#8217;t exonerate him,&#8221; said Magats, making clear that prosecutors believed he was in fact guilty and that the police investigation was sound. &#8220;It&#8217;s a mistake and it&#8217;s wrong to read into the decision that there was something wrong or that we learned something about the case that we didn&#8217;t already know,&#8221; Magats told the Tribune.
So, the Tribune, Emanuel, Johnson and so many others are left asking: Why drop the case and let someone avoid accountability, fail to repay the city for all the apparently wasted resources, and enjoy the ability to claim &#8220;exoneration&#8221;? There&#8217;s no defensible answer.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45145/who-kim-foxx-five-things-you-should-know-about-emily-zanotti">Who Is Kim Foxx? Five Things You Should Know About Chicago&#8217;s Controversial Prosecutor</a>

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