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A few more things about Smollett — 23 Comments

  1. He’s guilty.
    His crime was “fixed” — friend of Obama & the Power Dems.

    Injustice.
    In spades.

    NOT rule of law.

  2. The obvious underlying explanation here, is that Trump is favored by the Gods.

    First we all watch as a nasty report of a racist assault, instead turns into a Keystone Cops LOL hoax.

    But wait! It gets better!

    THEN the infamous Chicago/Illinois Machine crudely & transparently “fixes” the charges.

    Are we disgusted? Sure. Is this an adversity for Trump? Au contraire mon capitaine!

  3. The other day the black writer Zak Cheney-Rice posted a piece entitled “Jussie Smollett is Free; That’s Good, Whether He’s Guilty or Not.” Many of the commenters, even at leftist New York Magazine, were having none of it.

  4. No objective judge could honestly have sealed the case records. The discouraging thing is that the corruption encompasses and pervades all aspects of our country, including the judiciary at all levels.

  5. As I mentioned earlier on the other thread I think the telling part is right after your highlighted portion about similar low level felony defendants getting the same breaks. I mean why should this black, gay, super woke, politically connected celebrity be treated more harshly than some homeless guy.

    This is the ultimate push back to the ‘broken windows’ policy of a couple decades ago. There are people on the streets of major cities with 40, 50, 60 arrests in the last five years and it’s because of prosecutors like this.

    This happens daily in cities all over the place. Only these sex offenders and addicts don’t blame Trump.

  6. To sum up my point Smollett is not getting special treatment he is getting the same treatment as many, many others.

    We just don’t hear about them.

  7. Just another case that shoves public belief and faith in our supposed “justice” system even further down the throat of the crapper.

    Given all that we have learned over the last couple of years about the DOJ/FBI/Intelligence Agencies/State Department soft coup attempt against candidate and then President Trump and, on the other hand, how Hillary and Bill have “gotten away with murder,” and–over and over again–been given a pass for each and every one of their on the face of it very questionable and/or criminal activities.

    After the FBI’s extraordinarily high firepower, over the top pre-dawn raids on Stone and Manafort, and elderly Manafort–a non-violent, white collar criminal at best–being thrown in solitary—obviously to squeeze him to “flip” on Trump, after Gen. Flynn was set up in a perjury trap and his son reportedly threatened with prosecution to extract a “confession” from Flynn, after them and all of the other players (and their families)—George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Michael Caputo, and others—have been bankrupted by legal bills, threatened and harassed, it seems to me that—if you’re paying attention—your faith in our “justice” system has to be approaching rock bottom, if not, by now, subterranean.

  8. j e:

    I wouldn’t even mind him being free if he’d had to (a) admit guilt (b) pay large fines, not small ones (3) do meaningful community service (4) be on several years of probation.

  9. I would like to know more about his connection to Kamala Harris and her anti-lynching bill. I hope it comes out and ruins her candidacy. We all know that lynching is such a big problem in America today that the victims have to write out checks for the ropes.

  10. Heck, I’d settle for Jussie’s just having to admit his guilt at this point. What a travesty. But then it is Illinois. Just found an article on public corruption in that state that starts like this:

    Illinois’ official slogan is the “Land of Lincoln,” but an equally apt descriptor would be the “Land of Greased Palms.”

    The state, Cook County and its governmental seat, Chicago, have a long history of corruption by elected and appointed officials.

    The culture of corruption dates back to the late 19th century, when a gambling-house owner named Michael Cassius McDonald created the city’s first political machine, establishing a model in which officials would distribute contracts, jobs and social services in exchange for political support, according to a scholarly history of organized crime in Chicago by Robert Lombardo, a sociology professor and former Chicago and Cook County police officer.

    Its persistence was documented in Sept. 7, 2006 by the Chicago Sun-Times, which reported that at least 79 current or former Illinois, Chicago or Cook County elected officials had been found guilty of a crime by judges, juries or their own pleas since 1972. The paper provided this tally of the tarnished: three governors, two other state officials, 15 state legislators, two congressmen, one mayor, three other city officials, 27 aldermen, 19 Cook County judges and seven other Cook County officials.

  11. My question is whether Foxx can be disbarred for what she did. I haven’t seen anything about that. The Prosecutors Bar Association does not appear to be an attorney regulatory entity. In Illinois, that is the responsibility of the Attorney Regulation and Disciplinary Commission.

  12. Nothing will happen to Foxx just like nothing will happen to Smollett. In fact they will both benefit from this because of much higher profiles.

  13. “a judge or jury looks at the entire picture, including the corroborating evidence.” – Neo

    Indeed.
    We talk a lot about defendants having a right to “their day in court” in order to dispute the charges against them.
    The public also has a right to a day in court.

  14. Nothing will happen to Foxx just like nothing will happen to Smollett. In fact they will both benefit from this because of much higher profiles.

    Griffin: I get your cynicism. But I think the yang has flipped to yin. Stuff works until it doesn’t. And I think the Democrat playbook has stopped working — Trump won in 2016, the Kavanaugh attacks failed and so forth.

    I don’t expect Foxx and Smollett to be frog-marched to jail, but they will pay an unpleasant price. Partly because neither seems very smart about what they are up to.

    I’ve made my call. We’ll see.

  15. Until this kerfuffle, I had never heard of Jussie Smollett nor the show “Empire”.

    I would be very happy to return to that blissful state.

  16. Chris Rock at the NAACP Image Awards ceremony and Saturday Night Live recently poked fun at Jussie. Given the reluctance of current comedians to lampoon anyone who is not a “deplorable,” one infers that even in the “woke” community, Jussie Smollett has little credibility. Jussie Smollett is headed towards the pariah condition that Sgt. Mom predicts.

  17. Jussie is still in jeopardy from the hate mail / crushed tylenol letter. If that was the first hoax, and I bet it was, the feds will unravel it and Jussie is on the line for a terrorism charge.

    I don’t think Tina Tchen, basically a consigliere for the Obamas, can fix that, though there may be enough Obama holdovers in the FBI and Deep State to do the trick.

    But if it comes out Jussie mailed that letter, that’s all she wrote.

  18. In the Smollett case, there was plenty of it [corroborating evidence]

    Is there? I don’t see it listed here. I just see prosecutors saying their case was strong, which is what it seemed to be at first

  19. I don’t see it listed here.

    The security camera tape and the check he sent to the perps. This isn’t that difficult.

  20. Manju:

    Sure, I’ll write a legal brief for you. In my spare time.

    Or, perhaps you can do your own research.

    But here’s a start, from what is probably one of your favorite sources, the NY Times:

    The police say Mr. Smollett hired two brothers to stage an assault on him, and gave them a check for $3,500, with the promise of another $500 later. The police have a copy of the check, surveillance video of the brothers’ movements before the attack, and phone records showing that they spoke with Mr. Smollett an hour before the incident, and then again an hour afterward.

    In a document prepared for a bail hearing, prosecutors said they also had video of the brothers at the scene, text messages with Mr. Smollett, and the brothers’ testimony relating how Mr. Smollett had recruited them and how he had visited the scene of the incident with them the night before to prepare.

    The check was for training, according to Jussie. But the brothers’ usual fee for that was quite low, 20 to 50 dollars an hour. So that check would have been for something between 70 and 175 hours of training, so the check itself is highly suspicious evidence that tends to corroborate the brothers’ story. There are also cell phone and text messages that are said to have been suspicious in timing. The weather also made his story hard to believe, and in particular the idea that he mistook two black men—men that he knew quite well—for 2 white men he didn’t know is also pretty absurd on the face of it (literally). Remember, he originally described them as white.

    The grand jury found enough evidence to indict him on 16 counts. Obviously, we have not seen all the evidence. That’s actually what a trial is for. Perhaps he would have been acquitted, but clearly the evidence was quite persuasive.

    When they ended the case, the prosecutors initially made it very clear that the evidence was strong and that weak evidence was not the reason. Then, after they realized how outraged people got at that, they started saying it wasn’t so very strong after all. The whole thing is an absurdity.

    Jussie’s story made no sense. The cold. His description of the attackers (listen to this starting around 1:34 and going to around 4:20). They yelled stuff at him, he says. so he definitely heard the voice of at least one and perhaps both. Here’s a video one of the brothers made in which you can hear him speak. It’s hard to believe that Jussie would not have recognized his voice, his body-builder body, and his walk, and it’s almost impossible to believe Smollett would have thought from his voice that he was actually a white MAGA-shouting anti-black bigot.

    In addition, Jussie said they wore masks, but he indicates in his video he could see the bridge of the man’s nose. And yet Jussie’s lawyer now says maybe they were wearing whiteface, one of the most bizarre statements of all, although his lawyer’s assertion certainly isn’t what you’d call evidence.

    This is another curious statement from Jussie:

    I have to acknowledge the lies, and the hate. And it feels like if I had said it was a Muslim, or a Mexican, or someone black, I feel like the doubters would have supported me much more. A lot more,

    Some more here:

    On the morning of January 25, the documents show, Smollett texted Osundairo: “Might need your help on the down low. You around to meet up and talk face to face?”…

    According to the proffer, police have corroborated the meeting and text messages through pod videos and cellular phone tower data of Smollett’s cell phone…

    The plan changed when Smollett, who flew to New York City and was due back late on January 28, got delayed because of the weather. Smollett’s plane landed around 12:30 a.m. on January 29 and he called Abel Osundairo a few minutes later to schedule the attack for 2 a.m., according to the documents. The brothers took an Uber from their home, got out, and jumped in a cab to ride to the meeting place. The taxi’s in-car video captures the brothers flagging the cab and riding in the back seat, the documents show.

    Smollett returned to his apartment around 1:30 a.m. and left his building about 15 minutes later. Because he was late meeting the Osundairos, they were forced to wait on a nearby bench, which was also captured on video…

    Smollett described being punched while his attackers yelled homophobic and racist slurs. He told police there was a camera that had captured the attack on the street and described the primary attacker as “masked,” but that he could see the area around his eyes was white-skinned…

    Cell phone records obtained by police show that Smollett continued communicating with the brothers right after the attack, and later when they were in Nigeria and Turkey. When they returned on February 13, the Osundairo brothers were arrested at the airport.

    This case does not depend on the uncorroborated word of the brothers.

  21. R.e. neo (and Ann, and all other interested parties):

    “I wouldn’t even mind him being free if he’d had to (a) admit guilt (b) pay large fines, not small ones (3) do meaningful community service (4) be on several years of probation.”

    I never thought Smollett would see jail. I did want to see him convicted though. Now that the state attorney has dropped the charges and let this freak walk, free to say he’s entirely innocent, I want to see him imprisoned. And there is still a chance for that. He did send a threat letter to himself with a white powder that turned out be ground up aspirin. That’s a federal crime. Ms. Foxx can’t fix that.

    As of February 19th the FBI and US Postal Inspection Service had the letter and it was at a crime lab. I didn’t really care much earlier. Now I care.

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