Charges against Jussie Smollett dropped "considering his involvement in the community here"
Wednesday, 27 March 2019
I can tell you that @Chicago_Police are furious over SA Kim Foxx’s decision to drop all charges against #JussieSmollett
— Rafer Weigel (@RaferWeigel) March 26, 2019
This is important
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) March 26, 2019
Chicago police union demands federal investigation into Kim Foxx’s handling of Jussie Smollett casehttps://t.co/KUIqHb7SJk
I guarantee you there are some innocent people in Chicago that have indictments but since their name is not Jussie Smollett, a Hollywood star, and don’t have friends like the Obamas, Kamala Harris or Booker, they will end up going to prison and not get the same treatment.
— Kambree Kawahine Koa (@KamVTV) March 26, 2019
Dropping Charges Against Jussie Smollett: 'Almost Unheard-Of'https://t.co/dYYW4NIx0M
— Judge Napolitano (@Judgenap) March 26, 2019
This from 15 March
As TV actor and want-to-be-victim Jussie Smollett pleaded not guilty on Thursday to staging his very own fake hate crime, I thought about someone else on trial in this case:
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
The state’s attorney hasn’t been charged with anything and won’t be. She doesn’t have a formal role in the Smollett fake-hate-crime case, now that she’s recused herself owing to a conflict of interest.
But she stands in the court of public opinion after a remarkable Tribune story by reporters Megan Crepeau and Jeremy Gorner.
It is an account of how Foxx was contacted in the Smollett case by a politically connected lawyer close to Chicago’s most prominent political families, the Obamas and Emanuels.
That lawyer, Tina Tchen, was chief of staff for former first lady Michelle Obama, and she is a friend of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s wife, Amy Rule. Tchen was apparently a go-between for someone in the Smollett family.
There was literally an “omg” moment in the texts, because Foxx did what was asked of her:
She lobbied Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson to drop the Smollett case and push it over to the FBI.
She did so as Smollett’s heroic story — that he was the victim of a hate crime committed by supporters of President Donald Trump — was being unraveled by Chicago detectives.
So how should Foxx plead on this one?
Does she plead stupidity, and say she was blinded by political lights, by someone close to the Obamas, and say she lost her way and would like to beg mercy?
Would Foxx ever give a Chicago police officer that kind of break?
No. Most cops would laugh if you asked them that.
“Spoke to the Superintendent Johnson,” Foxx said in an email to Tchen on Feb. 1 obtained by reporters. “I convinced him to Reach out to FBI to ask that they take over the investigation.”
That day, Foxx texted a Smollett relative.
“Spoke to the superintendent earlier, he made the ask,” Foxx wrote. “Trying to figure out logistics. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Omg this would be a huge victory,” the Smollett relative replied.
“I make no guarantees, but I’m trying,” Foxx replied.
“I understand,” the Smollett relative typed. “I appreciate the effort.”
Omg.
Omg, Kim Foxx, where do I go with this?
It’s easy.
People reach out all the time in politics. You’ve got a guy who’s got a guy, that’s the Chicago Way.
It just so happened that there was another Tribune story, this one with Ald. Danny Solis, 25th, talking while wired up by the feds to Victor “Whispering Vic” Reyes, a lobbyist who worked for the Daleys.
Whispering Vic wanted city business, and wanted Solis to get him some, in exchange for political fundraising.
“How ’bout anything, Danny?” Reyes was quoted as saying on an FBI wire. “How ’bout anything? Not just the big one. How about one f------ thing?”
All that was missing was Solis saying, “It’s Chinatown, Vic. It’s Chinatown.”
Foxx shouldn’t have had any contact with Tchen or the Smollett family. She’s the prosecutor for Cook County. All she had to say was, “It’s under investigation. I can’t have this conversation.”
But she did. Omg.
Foxx is the political protegee of Toni Preckwinkle, boss of the Cook County Democratic Party and president of the County Board, and a candidate for mayor of Chicago. Preckwinkle should be asked about this, as should her opponent, former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot.
Now for every heater case that comes anywhere near Foxx, cops and taxpayers will have to wonder: Is there an omg moment in this one too?
Foxx was so badly burned here that her office is trying to flip things around to say that Smollett’s family was concerned about leaks to the media from police.
“When she initially engaged in the communications, Mr. Smollett was still believed to be the victim of the crime,” Foxx spokeswoman Kiera Ellis told the Tribune. “As the investigation started to change and it became a possibility that he could actually be a suspect, that is when she made the decision (to recuse herself).”
You mean, Smollett became a suspect when the heroic story he told to his ABC media cheerleader Robin Roberts began to fall apart?
That story of how he fought off those two tough Trump supporters (who turned out to be friendly Nigerian bodybuilders) who allegedly put the rope around his neck? How he fought them off with a cellphone in one hand and a tuna sandwich in the other, and both the phone and the sandwich survived?
That story?
You know who doesn’t get to call Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and text her and have omg moments?
The victims of real crimes, not fake ones. Crimes with real blood and real pain, floating face down in Chicago’s river of violence.
Like 1-year-old Dejon Irving, shot in the gang wars just about the time Smollett wanted to become a hero.
Or what of the families torn up when the grandfather or grandmother die, weeks, sometimes months, after being attacked in street robberies that are forgotten? Or the mothers and fathers who have lost their sons and daughters to killers who are never brought to justice?
They don’t get the Kim Foxx omg moment, but they’re not stars, like Jussie Smollett.
ENDS
You can read State Attorney Kim Foxx's emails and texts here:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-kim-foxx-texts-emails-jussie-smollett-20190313-htmlstory.html