The fate of the higher-ups who pulled the strings to get Jussie Smollett off the hook is now in the hands of a dummy who is panicking.
The venerable political machine that runs the most corrupt big city in America, the very city who gave us the presidency of Barack Obama, is erupting in a political civil war over a case that has riveted the attention of the public. What makes this story a beacon of hope for reform-minded populists is that the fate of the rascals is now in the hands of an incompetent public official who has outraged the public with obvious corruption of justice, and who is now panicking and making huge mistakes because the walls are starting to close in on her.
President Trump this morning confirmed an earlier report by ABC Chicago and promised that the FBI and DoJ will review the Smollett case:
For people who have spent the last few days on the dark side of the moon, prosecution of Jussie Smollett for falsely reporting a fake hate crime that he personally staged with the help of two associates (who have confessed and who are on surveillance tape purchasing the items used in the fake attack) was dropped by the state's attorney's office of Cook County and the record expunged with evidence in the case sealed.
As Judge Andrew Napolitano noted on Fox, expunging the records means that Smollett can truthfully testify under oath that he was never arrested, despite the fact that the entire world knows he was. The obvious stupidity is not lost on anyone — least of all the producers of Empire, who now have no legal grounds for terminating his contract.
Kim Foxx probably would not be the state's attorney for Cook County without the financial support of George Soros. The $330,000 he personally contributed to her super-PAC for her primary election was followed by another $75,000 after she defeated the incumbent, in the wake of public outrage over suppression of police video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald. Mr. Soros may have wanted a dummy in the office to assure that instructions would be obeyed, but Foxx now has dug herself a hole and doesn't understand the need to stop digging. She is changing her story — always a mistake because it proves she was lying, an absolute no-no for prosecutor.
Now Foxx is claiming that sealing the court files was an accident:
Foxx also had claimed that she had recused herself but evidently did not bother with the paperwork necessary for such a recusal. Now that an FBI and DoJ investigation is in prospect, she and her underlings are scrambling to explain away the lie.
Megan Crepeau of the Chicago Tribune explains the mess Foxx has created for herself:
Illinois law allows for a state's attorney to "file a petition to recuse himself or herself from a cause or proceeding for any other reason he or she deems appropriate." If the petition is granted, the law calls for the judge to appoint a special prosecutor either through the attorney general's office, another county prosecutor's office or a private attorney.
But Foxx, who stepped away from the Smollett case before charges were ever filed, didn't file a recusal petition or remove her office from the investigation. Instead, she handed the responsibility for the case to her first assistant, Joseph Magats, a 29-year veteran of the office.
After questions arose this week whether she had followed state law, Foxx's office appeared to back off whether she ever officially recused herself in the first place.
While the term "recusal" was used when it was announced she was stepping away from the Smollett case, a Foxx spokeswoman said, "it was a colloquial use of the term rather than in its legal sense."
"The state's attorney did not formally recuse herself or the office based on any actual conflict of interest," Tandra Simonton said in a statement. "As a result, she did not have to seek the appointment of a special prosecutor under (state law)."
An internal memo sent on Feb. 13 by Foxx's chief ethics officer, April Perry, however, did not describe the move as colloquial at all. Instead, Perry sent a two-sentence email informing staff that Foxx "is recused" from the Smollett investigation. It did not say why.
Foxx has now made the entire Chicago Police Department, from the superintendent on down, her avowed enemy, out to retaliate, because she has made their job impossible from now on. Does anyone think the operations of Foxx's office have been above reproach, and there is nothing for them to find? And nothing for them to turn over to the FBI as it investigates? Keep in mind that the CPD has been working closely with Foxx's office for years and often has been frustrated with low bail, declination of prosecution, and other moves she has led.
Foxx also is antagonizing the public by posing as an expert and telling the public that they are too dumb to understand the technicalities of her work. Speaking to reporters for Chicago's public radio station WBEZ, she said:
I think the confusion for people who don't understand the intricacies of the justice system, who don't understand alternative prosecution or diversion or alternate outcomes outside of prison or lengthy probation, it's a hard thing for people to process.
She made the false claim that the treatment of Smollett is customary:
But every single day on cases that law enforcement partners work diligently on, there are people who get similar arrangements, people who get diversion, people who get sentences that are probably not what some people would want. Every single day.
Unfortunately for her, Fox News obtained a copy of an internal memo in which staffers were frantically asked to come up with examples that could back up her reckless and false assertion:
An internal email from the office of Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx, obtained by Fox News on Wednesday, asked assistant state's attorneys to dig for any examples to bolster Foxx's claim that the dropped charges in the Jussie Smollett case weren't as uncommon or shocking as they seemed.
The email read in part, "We are looking for examples of cases, felony preferable, where we, in (exercising) our discretion, have entered into verbal agreements with defense attorneys to dismiss charges against an offender if certain conditions were met..."
The email added, "Nobody is in trouble, we are just looking for further examples of how we, as prosecutors, use our discretion in a way that restores the victim..."
It was not clear who sent it, and exactly when it was sent.
Here is a copy of the memo:
Via Fox News.
District attorneys are in an uproar over the case. Fox News reports:
The National District Attorneys Association, which claims to represent roughly 2,700 prosecutors' offices around the country, heavily criticized Foxx in a statement to Fox News.
"First, when a chief prosecutor recuses him or herself, the recusal must apply to the entire office, not just the elected or appointed prosecutor. This is consistent with best practices for prosecutors' offices around the country," the statement began.
It added, "Second, prosecutors should not take advice from politically connected friends of the accused. Each case should be approached with the goal of justice for victims while protecting the rights of the defendant. Third, when a prosecutor seeks to resolve a case through diversion or some other alternative to prosecution, it should be done so with an acknowledgement of culpability on the part of the defendant. A case with the consequential effects of Mr. Smollett's should not be resolved without a finding of guilt or innocence."
The statement concluded: "Fourth, expunging Mr. Smollett's record at this immediate stage is counter to transparency. Law enforcement will now not be able to acknowledge that Mr. Smollett was indicted and charged with these horrible crimes and the full record of what occurred will be forever hidden from public view. Finally, we believe strongly that hate crimes should be prosecuted vigorously but the burden of proof should not be artificially increased due to the misguided decisions of others."
So Kim Foxx, with many enemies, a changing story, and an FBI investigation pending with the local cops anxious to help pin misdeeds — preferably with criminal penalties attached — on her, now faces some serious problems. We still don't know why her office pulled the sudden switcheroo on Smollett, but there is plenty of reason to suspect that Tina Tchen, a former "assistant to the president" and chief of staff for Michelle Obama, had something to do with it.
Hat tip: Conservative Tree House.
I’ve never met Foxx, so I can't make an informed prediction, but I have to suspect that when she is panicked, and starts to realize she is in deep, deep trouble, she might respond positively to the offer of a deal in return for implicating the higher-ups who induced her to make the Great Switcheroo.
I hope so, at least.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/facing_an_fbi_and_doj_investigation_of_smollett_case_kim_foxx_is_panicking_and_changing_her_story.html
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/heroes_chicagos_embattled_police_are_fighting_back.html
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/03/unreal-smolletts-legal-team-demands-apology-from-chicago-police-chief-for-dragging-an-innocent-mans-character-through-the-mud/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/03/arrogant-chicago-states-attorney-kim-foxx-people-are-angry-about-smollett-decision-because-they-dont-understand-intricacies-of-the-judicial-system/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/03/new-chicago-police-union-announce-protest-of-corrupt-states-attorney-kim-foxx-monday/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/03/breaking-president-trump-calls-for-fbi-and-doj-to-review-outrageous-jussie-smollett-case-in-chicago-an-embarrassment/
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