The charges against Jussie Smollett have been dismissed, but in a shocking new development, it also turns out the Chicago police bribed the brothers who alleged he faked the hate crime to begin with!
So sayeth a good chunk of lefty Twitter... kind of. No one prominent actually said that. Instead there were a bunch of eye emojis, pointing emojis, tea emojis, and "wow," and "huh" and "interesting." "This is significant," they all seemed to say, but oddly no one seemed to want to explain why it was significant.
no big deal. https://t.co/iie51ntRpd
— deray (@deray) March 28, 2019
Really? Oh. https://t.co/nirIFtnfvS
— Touré (@Toure) March 28, 2019
Oh ho ho https://t.co/N0xgLh00dY
— Emily G ⛓ (@EmilyGorcenski) March 28, 2019
What on earth https://t.co/2UO7DlLc8e
— Broderick Greer (@BroderickGreer) March 28, 2019
— Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) March 28, 2019
WHEW. Trump is calling on the FBI and DOJ to investigate this case. They may not like what they find. Or... they might. https://t.co/7ruK0uKDGJ
— April (@ReignOfApril) March 28, 2019
The reason no one with even a sliver of respectability wants to explain why a seemingly mundane detail is a big deal is so they can't get called out on how stupid the underlying suggestion is. Instead you just strongly hint at impropriety and let the folks without the blue checkmarks or cable contracts connect the dots; "the police and the brothers planned it all out," "the cops did it," "the cops paid these guys to say he did something bad," and, ahem, "IT'S AS IF CHICAGO PD HAVE A LOOOOOOOOOONG HISTORY OF MAKING UP BULLSHIT CRIMES INVOLVING HIGH-PROFILE *BLACK* PEOPLE."
So why did the police gift the brothers with a free hotel stay? Well, all you have to do is click the story! WUSA reports "the brothers were taken to the hotel after their release, when police found out news organizations were at the men's residence." This is not an unusual or controversial step for witnesses in high-profile cases, especially when police knew the brothers would soon testify before a grand jury.
The alternative here is what exactly? That police bribed two individuals with ... six days stuck in a hotel room eating takeout? And then they logged that bribe in their official reports and leaked it to the public?
Against that absurd proposition we have to weigh the substantial amount of evidence police laid out when announcing Smollett's arrest, including a $3,500 check signed by Smollett, a text message from Smollett to one of the brothers reading "Might need your help on the low. You around to meet up and talk face-to-face?", and his call to one of the brothers an hour before the assault. We have to consider his changing story about the race of his assailants, requiring his attorney to now insist his attackers were black men wearing whiteface. And I don't think Smollett's refusal to hand his phone over to police ought to be viewed as evidence of guilt, but if you're inclined to view something as circumstantial as police setting up the brothers in a hotel as evidence of the cops' guilt, surely you'd have to?
The answer of course is the people engaging in Smollett apologetics are not serious actors who are judging the evidence for and against. They're apologists, prejudging the case based on the perceived Good Guys (LGBT and black community) and Bad Guys (Trump supporters, Chicago PD). I suspect if you cornered one of them in a bar, after a few drinks they'd tell you Smollett was guilty as sin.
Even more weaselly are the Smollett agnostics, people weighing the substantial evidence against Smollett against the pitiful story his attorney has concocted, and gee golly, just don't know what to think! "We may never really know what happened on the street that night in Chicago," shrugs CNN's Brian Stelter who, last I checked, hosts a show called "Reliable Sources."
But despite just not knowing what to believe, Stelter also claimed, "The narrative has once again changed, from victim to villain back to victim." This was when the story was breaking. There was no prevailing media narrative. The only narrative in which Smollett had shifted back to a victim was in Stelter's headspace.
The Jussie Smollett story was one that embarrassed a lot of well-intentioned people who championed a supposed victim. Now, with charges dropped for reasons that seem increasingly dubious, they're taking the bait once again. Jussie Smollett doesn't deserve your support or credulity, he deserves to be called out for the sociopath he is.