"He is suspected of filing a false police report, which carries a felony charge.... According to the Chicago PD, detectives are currently presenting evidence before a Cook County grand jury, which could lead to Smollett’s indictment. Two brothers, Ola and Abel Osundairo, were eventually arrested and brought in for questioning in the attack..... The brothers reportedly said all three men 'rehearsed' the attack days prior to it happening.... CBS reported that Smollett allegedly plotted the attack after being upset that a threatening letter containing a white powder that he received a week prior to the attack did not elicit a more serious response from 20th Century Fox, the studio behind Empire. A magazine potentially used to create the letter was seized from the brothers’ home; that letter is currently being investigated by the FBI."
That's how the story is reported in New York Magazine's "Vulture."
UPDATE: Jussie Smollett is charged with felony disorderly conduct.
February 20, 2019
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104 comments:
You want no punishment but look at this. https://mobile.twitter.com/MichaelDavSmith/status/1097468270561628161
Wait, so they are actually going to hold him accountable? In Chicago?
To generalize from this and a few other data points: We are lucky the American left has been so incompetent, so far.
The letter is what will put him in prison. Bad mistake.
The bigger problem for him is the fake white powder. That is a Federal offense, a felony in fact.
How many of anti-white racists and Trump derangement haters here and elsewhere that screamed about “the violence inherent in the system” will have the integrity to apologize and condemn him, unconditionally, not a “Trump’s AmeriKKKa made him do it” variety?
that letter is currently being investigated by the FBI.
My confidence wanes.
Is he being charged with a hate crime? His goal was to frame white men and make them objects of hatred.
If not, why not?
(Serious question. Not just my usual snarking)
All lefty articles about this will, by diktat, begin with the following disclaimer:
Of course, the real tragedy of this hoax is that the POC who are truly victims of hate crimes will not be believed.
Meanwhile in Virginia the two racists and a sex offender are still in office.
Smollett's problem is there isn't a Republican actor waiting to take his role.
in Virginia the two racists and a sex offender are still in office
Virginia revels in its diversity and hides its vainglory at the twilight fringe of the Pro-Choice.
Stay strong Jussie. Just because you're guilty is no reason for your supporters to not believe in you. I direct your attention to Ethel Rosenberg, Alger Hiss and Bill Ayers. Support for them has never wavered. If we start persecuting lefties just because they're guilty, America will be in a fine fix.
I've been reading the root ever since the story broke. They said "whitey bad" at first and then when it really became obvious it was probably him the consensus was it was because the cops were racist and framing him and as of today they're just not talking about it at all. So that's disheartening
I read today that there should be an annual hoax hate crime award called the Jussie
Are the Chicago detectives white? Because that's all OJ needed for acquittal.
Free Jussie!
Bill,
I think the entire concept of hate crime bogus. People should be charged with whatever crime they actually committed, whatever harm they did.... without the state attempting to peer into their souls and inquire as to their motives.
That being said, I think Smollett committed a somewhat lesser crime here, and that the entire thing was staged but not an attempt to frame any particular innocent person for the deed. (Contrast this with the Duke lacrosse case, for example.)
So it's fine to be charging him with whatever he ends up being charged with regarding using the mail to make a fake terroristic threat, and a sentence in the normal range for that crime. An attempt to befriend a particular person should be treated much more severely.
What a surprise.
And now Smollett will lawyer up, and the uninteresting saga where nothing happened will continue.
But I hope Smollett goes down hard.
If God has any sense of humor we'll soon find Jussie involved in a slow-speed white Tesla chase.
Good grief, voice dictate! How did 'frame' in that last paragraph turn into 'befriend'?
Kevin at 5:39 PM
Meanwhile in Virginia ... there isn't a Republican actor waiting to take his role.
LOL
If he is indicted, get ready for demonstrations.
they are going to indict 6 days before a mayoral election, with the ties that the prosecutor has to insurgent candidate precwinkle, who I referenced before, I would find it unlikely
unsurprising though is seth mandel, giving jessie the benefit of the doubt, like with s e cupp
The Letter is at least 2 Federal 5 year felonies
1 letter
2 WMD Threat in powder
So it looks like he will be indicted for at least filing a false police report in Chi Town, and Gateway Pundit is showing that he is likely to get charged for several federal offenses for the letter he sent himself.
Well, if you are going to screw up, at least do it really, really well.
I hope he gets the maximum on all charges he is brought up on and convicted of, and does not get the usual celebrity pass because feelz...
Are the Chicago detectives white? Because that's all OJ needed for acquittal.
Jussie could spend the rest of his life looking for the real assailants.
The Smollet affair will be memory-holed. The next Great Race Hoax is just on the horizon.
Gell-Mann Amnesia will be in full effect.
If Smollet was able to film this 'attack' as planned, edited and released to the press, no one in this country would be able to wear so much as a Trump t-shirt in public. On campus, you'd get expelled.
Like a bumbling terrorist, his own stupidity is the only thing that saved us.
I really want the Leftists to venture into this thread.
This is in front of a Cook County grand jury. It's gonna die there.
"Smollett's problem is there isn't a Republican actor waiting to take his role."
If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself, but maybe he's just not a good actor.
Re the prior post on this matter:
McWhorter's a smart guy, always worth reading. Nice bit of misdirection by him on this though.
Michael K said...
The letter is what will put him in prison. Bad mistake."
I hope so - but this is Chicago we're talking about.
Never forget that Smollett was OK with 2 anonymous guys being charged with the fake hate crime. Its only when the Detectives told him it was 2 Nigerians that he suddenly backtracked.
People are laughing at Jussie, but what if the camera had been pointing the "right way". We'd have seen 2 bundled up supposedly "White guys" - attacking Jussie and putting a noose on his neck and pouring bleach on him. The tape would've gotten leaked and shown everywhere. The MSM Would've gone bat shit crazy! People like Scott Adams, Althouse and Rod Dreher would've been wringing their hands "Oh my, what hath Trump wrought". And then there would've been some black on white violence as "retaliation"
We were just lucky guys. The Next Fake hate crime might be better planned and smarter.
We were
There was a woman I seem to recall years ago who killed her children. Made national headlines for a few days. She first tried to say black men stole her car or some such.
I am not equating child murder and the type of hate that Smollett wanted to foster in other people, by his actions. Hells bells, I am even willing to say there is still a very small chance Smollett is telling the truth, somehow, and he is living in some twisted time warp where in his alternative dimension home planet, the Nigerians were white.
This isn't about Smollett. Or his evident hate. Which is what it was. Nope. This comment is to all the people who write columns or tweets in how "disappointed" they are it didn't happen the way he said, and or who think people who were maligned, shouldn't demonstrate any emotion, cause that's wrong, apparently.
Did you feel disappointment it was a child murdering mom and not a black guy? And if this is not your first recent disappointment (Rolling Stone story) maybe it is time to wonder why you are sad about some things but not others.
White guys kill, black guys kill, Polynesian guys kill. Men lie, women lie. If you don't believe that, or you would prefer (or finding yourself hoping) to believe that it is only one race or one gender that is the guilty one, you're the bigot.
I would hope 80% of us can walk around, do our jobs, watch the kids at sports or music, and not be overtly racist. I don't know who would have the energy after a day's work to go walk the streets looking for a gay black actor in the freezing cold. I don't know why people at first hearing the story would rush to twitter to vilify. Sympathy- perhaps. But to use the story to attack others? Cmon on.
I don't usually get into these discussions here. But this one is really despairing. Senator Harris's laugh perhaps. She knows she is not accountable. No one ever is. Say whatever you want, we live in whatever times. And it didn't start in 2016. People can say it started with the Po-mo crowd, that's above my pay grade.
Susan Smith, these medean exercises, sadly ring in the conscience, cayley Anthony is another,
I have given my view of what damage the likes of empire wreaks in part by the message it sends,
The penalties under federal law for sending a fake threatening letter with fake anthrax in it, which is apparently what Smollett did, are going to be a lot heavier than the penalties under state law for staging a phony assault.
Lighten up, everybody. It was all part of the act. The show must go on.
Hatred is hell of a drug.
D 2- you seem quite sure that you are not the bigot.
I think you might be wrong.
Lighten up everybody! It's Black History Month!
this year's theme is "Black Migrations"
yeah-- migrating from legitimate grievances to faked, phony ones.
Now that McCabe has testified that the FBI planned to investigate JEFF SESSIONS as a possible Russian agent, the question must be asked: is there any chance Smollett’s letter will be investigated by a real law enforcement agency?
"D 2- you seem quite sure that you are not the bigot.
I think you might be wrong."
I never saw D 2 comment before, but nothing they wrote here suggests any bigotry whatsoever. I can't tell even what race or sex D 2 is from their comments. Calling them a bigot is just wrong.
Jussie plans a lynching, so he tells the Nigerians to buy some rope along with their Caucasian MAGA costume.
Having never seen old cowboy movies and therefore unfamiliar with the process, they buy cloth clothesline.
I wonder about Jussie;s reaction when he saw the "lynch rope" they provided.
So, we got the Kavanaugh rapist hoax. The Native American beatdown hoax and the famous actor racial attack attempted murder hoax.
Not to mention the hundreds of lesser known hoaxes SINCE Trump became president.
bagoh 20 - let D 2 speak for his or herself.
I think that D 2 is a bigot because of the self-righteous, everybody does it tone.
Let me explain this to you in a way you can understand. In Paris in the last year, there have been hundreds of violent attacks against Jews. The Jews have not reciprocated with equal violence. Are the Jews equally responsible?
D 2 is a bigot if he tells you that they are.
Bagoh 20, maybe you are a bigot too.
Jay Vogt said...
This is in front of a Cook County grand jury. It's gonna die there.
In a story where it seems everybody keeps wanting to say something before they should say it:
Cook County State's Attorney charges fourth-degree felony disorderly conduct.
Once again the local media does real reporting and the national press disgraces itself.
At least one magazine is mentioning his prior substance abuse problems to lay the sympathy groundwork for his defense initiative
Michael K said...
The letter is what will put him in prison. Bad mistake.
Well connected Trump hating liberal black celebrity? Fine, probation, recovery program, max.
Meanwhile, Roseanne lost it all for a dumb joke.
I wonder about Jussie's reaction when he saw the "lynch rope" they provided.
It probably looked a lot like Nigel's reaction when he saw Stonehenge descend in Spinal Tap.
Jussie Smollett tried to provoke hatred against white people, if the felony indictment is true.
If people on this thread are happy that his evil plans were thwarted, that does not make them bigots.
That makes them people who are against racism.
The fine for diverting police resources should be enormous.
Hmm - so a class four felony disorderly conduct charge carries a possible sentence of from 1 to 3 years if convicted.
So 3 years in Chicago and whatever the federal charges bring, if convicted.
I think the operative here is 'dumbass'...
Big Mike said...
Now that McCabe has testified that the FBI planned to investigate JEFF SESSIONS as a possible Russian agent, the question must be asked: is there any chance Smollett’s letter will be investigated by a real law enforcement agency?
In a story where everybody feels entitled to deploy whatever extremist language they can imagine:
McCabe received a request from Senators Leahy and Feinstein that the Bureau look into the truth of testimony that Sessions gave to the Senators about his contacts with Russian diplomats and other Russian agents. McCabe followed up on it. The FBI didn't "plan" an investigation and I'm not aware of anybody who alleged that then-Senator Sesssions was a "Russian agent."
As for Smollett, his letter is indeed being investigated at the FBI crime lab in connection with the U.S. Postal Service.
Federal and state charges - if convicted of both - are likely to run concurrently.
A five year federal sentence would mean 4.5 years behind bars and three months in a halfway house, I believe.
Neat strategy:
Leahy and Feinstein get to call the FBI to investigate Republican Jeff Sessions.
And Chuck, disinvited racist fopdoodle, thinks that's no big deal.
Is it OK if we hope for consecutive and not concurrent? Too much?
Arashi - if the indictment is true, this evil man probably wanted to provoke riots, which generally result in the death or wounding of innocent people of all races. He is no friend to any community.
He has to live with that, whether or not his sentences are consecutive or concurrent.
He was generally incompetent though, had he staged the incident in front of the correct camera he could have provoked a real fracas.
Narciso, Stupidity is a gift God gives to nasty people to protect them from the full consequences of their intentions.
Preach it brother
Stephen Cooper,
I think you are correct in what his desires included - but I don't think he has enough introspective ability to actually think the ramafications through. I think he will be blaming other people for his troubles for the rest of his days. Rather like the sailors who worked for me on the USS Midway who got in trouble out in town. It was always soembody else, the ship, being stationed in Japan - something, never their own actions that were responsible for the krap they found themselves in.
I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
I think Stephen Cooper misunderstood me. But I'm more upset if he thought it was out of self righteousness. And I'm doubly - no, triply - more upset that bagoh doesn't read my rare-ish posts here over the last few years! Maybe he doesn't like Van Morrison.
Stephen - The idea i presented wasn't that everyone does it, so it is ok. That is not what I wrote. The idea is that if you find yourself wanting to believe the worst of only one type of people, every time such stories come up, maybe it is time to check that. See people as individuals for goodness sake. I didnt think I could be that misunderstood by the words I wrote, but hey, we live in crazy times. Actually crazy isn't the word. "Whatever" is.
What was that term used to describe committing crimes to provoke a race war? I think it made it onto a Beatles album.
You talkin' about 'helter skelter'?
(or am I being dense?)
D 2 - I was disappointed that you said that ethics is above your pay grade, after you spent several paragraphs criticizing people, on ethical grounds, for apparently (but who knows the heart of other people) innocent comments decrying the racism of a person who apparently tried to bring hatred down upon white and Asian Americans, because of the hatred in his own heart.
When you criticized an entire group of people for what were on the surface anti-racist comments, and then said that the study and understanding of unethical behavior is above your pay grade, I reasonably thought that you were not treating this issue fairly, and I commented that maybe you are the bigot in this scenario. I understood your words in that light.
Ethics is not above any of our pay grades. We all need to do our best to identify where bigotry began, either in our own hearts or the hearts of others, or we need to shut up about it (as you said 80 percent of people reasonably do).
That being said, I am glad you did not mean to suggest what I thought you were suggesting. I will take your word for it.
As Robert Mueller is busy on other things CPD can investigate properly.
@Chuck, learn to recognize an attempt at humor when you see it. Sheesh’
"Chuck said...In a story where it seems everybody keeps wanting to say something before they should say it:
Cook County State's Attorney charges fourth-degree felony disorderly conduct."
A disorderly. Are you kidding me? It's unclear if this came out of the GJ. It would be awfully fast if it was. I think this is a State of IL back-up charge. We shall see.
You talkin' about 'helter skelter'?
(or am I being dense?)
I am...trying to jog people's memories and remind them we as a nation took this kind of thing deadly seriously once upon a time.
Rephrasing Chuck:
If the Leftist partisans at the FBI investigates Sessions for Russians ties, that might be something.
If Leftists Leahy and Feinstein get the FBI to investigate Sessions for Russian ties, that is nothing.
Appreciate the nuance of LLRs.
Big Mike said...
@Chuck, learn to recognize an attempt at humor when you see it. Sheesh’
2/20/19, 8:12 PM
I did what Althouse suggested. I quoted the commenter, gave the quote full context, and replied to its substance. And now I am going to further follow Althouse's suggestion, by not continuing any personal back-and-forth.
Good night.
Smollett's primary mistake was assuming that police didn't care about false reports, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that police get false reports all the time and absolutely despise them however they rarely have the resources to actually pursue charges so they mostly just ignore them.
Unfortunately for Smollett he decided to make this a political matter which means that rationality and logic go out the window. His claims resulted in about 20 different detectives being assigned to the case which is something you only typically see in high profile murders.
Anyway, I can pretty much guarantee that the detectives and feds (because he was stupid enough to mail himself a threat) are absolutely loving the idea of coming down on him like a hammer.
Big Mike tells a joke.
Chuck, racist fopdoodle, pretends the premise of the joke was sincere.
Big Mike suggests Chuck, disinvited racist fopdoodle, have a sense of humor.
Chuck, racist fopdoodle, hides behind Althouse's skirt.
This is a poor game.
Thank you Stephen. Take my word.
You do persist in misunderstanding me quite a bit. Please do not suggest that I was criticizing people for decrying what Smollett did. Nowhere close did I say that. Quite the opposite - Check the 2/3 paragraphs. Maybe I write not-goodish?
In any case I would ask you to stop jumbling your interpret of my words which can be read by all to see. I re-read them and stand by them. It is odd that three sentences I wrote are very similar to what you posted later, yet you take mine to mean the opposite. So let's leave it there thank you.
Apparently Jussie Smollett hired immigrants to do a job white, native-born Americans refused to do.
D 2 - "So let's leave it there thank you." I am fine with that.
For the record, I get misunderstood all the time too.
I am not persisting in misunderstanding you, I said I take your word for it and I meant it.
You sound like an interesting person, this would have been a more interesting conversation in a bar or on a train, I am better at understanding what people are trying to say in real life than I am in interpreting short comments on the internet.
so...what's the next Hoax du Jour ?
Noose-n-Bleach lynching will be a tough act to follow
"felony disorderly conduct."...
Hahahaha... now if it was felony filing a false report I could see that (3 year jail sentence) but instead the 'fix is in'. Plea bargain to a misdemeanor. That is what will happen.
a-chew
I hope he's out in time to run in 2020.
Paul,
The USPS takes itself very seriously. They have prosecutors for federal mail crimes. The USPS has investigators.
That is Smollett's most dangerous exposure.
When I called this a hoax from day one, so many in my circle were like, "Oh, that's what you always say. You're skeptical of everything!" This is so juvenile, but I can't wait for the gloat fest tomorrow.
Common sense is a useful tool, eh J. Farmer?
If we must have 'hate crimes', he should be thusly charged in addition to the aforementioned charges. I think sending suspicious substances through the mail is a federal crime.
Because he was unsuccessful, we cant measure the potential societal damage.
It's analogous to a terrorist's bomb that fails to go off due to its maker's ineptitude.
Incompetence: Our Unlikely Ally
Wait, is Jussie short for Justice?
The irony, it burns.
Of course, it's just another fake hate crime. Smollett is a fool. And so on and so forth.
But the very fact that a fool thought he could stage this little stunt and get sympathy for it, that he would not face consequences, that the smear of the deplorables would go over well, that progs would rally to his side, tells you the state of prog culture today.
And he was not wrong: progs did rally to his side, the denunciations did pour forth.
But sometimes even progs have to face facts. One of these days, they'll face the fact that the racism smear itself is fake.
"Felony disorderly conduct," eh? So he'll plead to misdemeanor disorderly conduct, pay a fine, do some community service, or maybe some symbolic jail time, and then we are back to business as usual.
I think that the lesson the Left will learn from this is that they cannot afford to let the investigation get out of hand. If I were a Lefty who hated ordinary American Trump supporters, I would immediately see that the best outcome was not the arrest of the perpetrators, but for the all the negative coverage of an alleged attack on a gay black man by white Trump supporters continue while the investigation went nowhere, and eventually people forgot about it.
What you want is for fellow travelers at the Justice Department to take charge of the investigation.
@IngachucktoothlssARM, not really. Given that Smollett has been formally charged this is more like the terrorist bomb maker who has one go off in his face. No houris for you, Abu!
The question of “Smollett — if he really did it” gets closer and closer to being settled every day.
Blogger Birkel said...
Paul,
The USPS takes itself very seriously.
There was a time when I would have agreed with that, but the Left has corrupted most of our most cherished institutions. Even the frikkin' Boy Scouts.
Here are the bullet points from an email I received from the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) yesterday:
AAAS
Advance science. Advance society.
Science is the engine that drives human progress. And when science hits a roadblock, we all pay the costs. To our environment. To our public health. To our civic conversations.
It’s time to say, “Enough is enough.” It’s time to move forward. But we can’t do it without you.
Help us:
Advocate for evidence-based policies at the national, state, and local levels
Build a global community of scientists and innovators
Inform the public about the benefits of scientific research
Empower women and minorities to pursue careers in STEM
... and much, much more.
When science advances, we all advance. So get in on the movement.
How much of that AAAS email is about actual science?
""Felony disorderly conduct," eh? So he'll plead to misdemeanor disorderly conduct, pay a fine, do some community service, or maybe some symbolic jail time, and then we are back to business as usual.
Unless the Feds nail him for the envelope/powder business.
@BigMike
we see your point, and like the imagery much better,
but in so far as "the failed terrorist" goes, they would still be punished (thus a 'backfire')But a well-charred jihadi does pack more punch!
underlying all this is the notion that his goofiness casts the affair in a quasi-comical light vs the serious potential damage he could have caused to the undeserving faction of society.The Left scored a huge goal on themselves.
@Birkel:
Common sense is a useful tool, eh J. Farmer?
"People sometimes say: 'Common sense is quite rare.'"
-Voltaire
Team Dem/Left has lit up the Bat Signal to call forth all good lefties and lefty allies/LLR's to create a crescendo of noise to bury the truth that is coming out, first as a trickle, now as a steady stream and, given the panicked tone of the lefties and their LLR lap poodles, is in danger (to the left/LLR's) of becoming a deluge.
And once the Mueller hoax/fake "investigation"/Combo Cover Up-Frame Up is no longer active, Trump can declassify the relevant lie-filled docs the dems/left/LLR's put in place to overthrow a duly elected President and re-install the dems in all positions of power.
The ultimate LLR Chuck fever dream will have failed to launch.
Tsk tsk
The local/state charges aren't that serious- it is the letter he sent/had sent with the fake anthrax is a serious issue and will get him hauled up on federal charges.
He can probably cop a plea and avoid jail time altogether, but this would require him to admit to everything publicly, and I see no indication he is smart enough to do this. I predict that 6 months from now certain people will still be claiming that Smollett was rail-roaded.
Eeexxxcellent!
if only he had the planning skills of clapper or comey
I’ll be up early eagerly awaiting the massive police presence and a CNN crew to make and witness the arrest. Film at 6.
Wait and see approach: validated
Are the Chicago detectives white? Because that's all OJ needed for acquittal
-- A grossly incompetent prosecution helped too.
In Paris in the last year, there have been hundreds of violent attacks against Jews. The Jews have not reciprocated with equal violence. Are the Jews equally responsible?
If the French police do not protect them, the Parisian Jews have a moral duty to defend themselves. As the Israelis say, "Never again."
Free Americans have the same duty if our government fails us. Not that we're close to that kind of failure yet. But the fact that Chavez was elected in Venezuela shows that it can happen even in a democracy.
"USPS takes itself very seriously. They have prosecutors for federal mail crimes. The USPS has investigators.
That is Smollett's most dangerous exposure."
EFN even wore gloves when he opened that letter, to heighten the dramatic tension and sense of danger.
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