Actor Jussie Smollett never behaved like a victim, former Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said in a new interview.
“When I initially saw the video of him in his apartment with the noose around his neck, I was concerned, because I don’t think there are many black people in America that would have a noose around their neck, and wouldn’t immediately take it off,” Johnson said, according to NewsNation.
He said that when he reviewed bodycam footage of Smollett being interviewed, Smollett did not appear as ruffled as one would expect, given that he told police he had been beaten on a Chicago street.
Smollett was found guilty on five of six counts of disorderly conduct — a class four felony — for lying to police about his January 2019 claim that two masked men attacked him on the street, yelling that Smollett was in “MAGA country” along with various racial and anti-gay slurs.
“And then the way he was so nonchalant, handling, it gave me pause for concern, you know, but I would not let the police department make him an offender until the evidence just got to be so overwhelming.”
And then there was the case of the sandwich.
“He went to a Subway sandwich shop at like two in the morning to get a sandwich. OK, that’s fine. He comes back gets attacked in a hate crime, supposed hate crime. And during all this scuffle, they poured bleach on him and all of this,” said Johnson.
“When he got up and went into his apartment building, he still had this Subway sandwich. Well, that doesn’t happen,” he said.
“When people get attacked like that whatever belongings they have out there, they usually leave it until the police can go back with them because they’re afraid, This guy had the sandwich in his hand and never been touched,” he said.
The first thing that Johnson noticed was that Smollett went through an alleged vicious attack but still held on to his Subway sandwich. Of course, real professionals like Peter Clemenza always remember to “leave the gun, take the cannoli.” https://t.co/C6UTvmnFS7
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 11, 2021
On Friday, former President Donald Trump called the Smollett case “sort of a hate crime in reverse,” according to the New York Post.
“If he were a Republican, if he were on the other side, he’d be in jail for 25 years for hate crimes for what he did and for what he said,” Trump said.
“This was an absolute con job and he was the con man and he wanted to try and get sympathy so he could get his contract renewed for his ridiculous television series and that didn’t work out too well.”
Sarcasm flowed from Fox News host Greg Gutfeld in an Op-Ed posted on Fox News, in which he said the entire hoax only existed because the media enabled it.
“He could have gotten away with it. But his only problem: he’s an idiot. He hired two black guys to play two white guys. Not only a violation of cultural appropriation but just terrible casting. That’s like casting Gwyneth Paltrow to play Rosa Parks,” Gutfield wrote.
“And who’s wandering around a frigid Chicago night holding rope and bleach? Angry penguins, that are into bondage? On their way to clean swimming pools? And perhaps the biggest improbability of all? What White, MAGA heads would ever recognize Jussie Smollett? He’s asked to show ID at family gatherings,” Gutfeld wrote.
“And yet the media bought it all. Because like a really bad drug dealer, they were getting high on their own supply – feeding off their own race fantasies. It’s as if they could believe in anything.”