The fallout from the shockingly corrupt Jussie Smollet decision is not over, you can be sure. The cops and even Mayor Rahm Emanuel came out forcefully and called the decision to let Smollet go a travesty of justice.
They trashed Smollet for holding a press conference where he said he was innocent and cleared of all charges when that is simply not the case.
In fact, a Chicago District Attorney on the case specifically said Smollet was not exonerated. Which makes this leak tying Michelle Obama to the case worth investigating.
From The Chicago Sun-Times: Just days after Jussie Smollett told Chicago police he had fought off a pair of attackers who targeted him in an apparent hate crime, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx tried to persuade Police Supt. Eddie Johnson to turn the investigation over to the FBI.
Foxx’s call to Johnson came after an influential supporter of the “Empire” actor reached out to Foxx personally: Tina Tchen, a Chicago attorney and former chief of staff for former First Lady Michelle Obama, according to emails and text messages provided by Foxx to the Chicago Sun-Times in response to a public records request.
Tchen passed Foxx’s number to a relative of the actor, and the ensuing conversations with the family member were cited by Foxx last month as the reason she recused herself from Smollett’s prosecution as the actor faces disorderly conduct charges for allegedly making a false police report.
Text messages show Tchen contacted Foxx on Feb. 1, three days after Smollett said he was jumped by two men as he walked home from a sandwich shop near his Streeterville home. Tchen texted Foxx to set up an early morning phone call.
“I wanted to give you a call on behalf of Jussie Smollett and family who I know. They have concerns about the investigation,” Tchen wrote in a text sent before 5 a.m., seeking to set up a call with Foxx before Tchen left on an 8 a.m. flight to New York.
A few hours later, Foxx received a text from a relative of Smollett, who said she’d received the number from Tchen.
In an interview with the Sun-Times this week, Foxx said that the family member expressed concerns about leaked information about the investigation — information that media outlets attributed to “police sources.”
“They had no doubt about the quality of the investigation, but believed that the FBI would have a tighter lid on the information,” said Foxx, adding that Johnson initially seemed receptive to the idea of turning the case over to the FBI.
Foxx said she has made similar calls to Johnson in cases involving lower-profile victims.
From Heavy.com:
Kim Foxx, the Cook County State’s Attorney, tried to convince Chicago police to turn the Jussie Smollett case over to the FBI, Chicago newspapers reported.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the effort by Foxx came after a former Michelle Obama chief of staff reached out to Foxx. The newspaper reported that the chief of staff and lawyer was a supporter of Smollett.
She was described as Tina Tchen, “a Chicago attorney and former chief of staff for former First Lady Michelle Obama,” by the Sun-Times.
On March 26, 2019, the Empire actor’s attorneys dramatically revealed that prosecutors had dropped charges against Smollett, who stood accused of multiple felonies for allegedly faking a hate crime attack.
“He was a victim who was vilified and made to appear as a perpetrator as a result of false and inappropriate remarks made to the public causing an inappropriate rush to judgment,” his lawyers said in a statement. It was a dramatic and stunning about-face in the case, and it’s renewed scrutiny over what happened between Kim Foxx and Tina Tchen.
Foxx had recused herself from the case, and her top deputy, Joe Magats, made the decision, according to a journalist for the New York Times, who quoted Magats as saying,
“We stand behind the investigation, we stand behind the decision to charge him and we stand behind the charges in the case.
The mere fact that it was disposed of in an alternative manner does not mean that there were any problems or infirmities in the case or the evidence.” New York Times reporter Julie Bosman quoted Joseph Magats as saying, “We didn’t exonerate him.”
