.@JussieSmollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I’m praying for his quick recovery.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 29, 2019
This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.
For Kamala Harris, is no noose good noose? Now that the Senator is officially the Democratic vice presidential nominee – and likely to take over from Joe Biden sooner rather than later if he wins – it’s worth revisiting one of the most bizarre episodes of her failed run for the top spot on the ticket.
Most people would recall the alleged hate crime hoax perpetrated by actor Jussie Smollett last year, the details of which were so absurd even comedian Dave Chappelle turned “Justice for Juicy” into a punchline.
Less well covered are a number of curious links between Ms Harris, at that point running for the Democratic presidential nomination, and the saga of Smollett’s “attempted modern day lynching”, as she described it.
THE ALLEGED HOAX
Back in January 2019, the little-known actor from the Fox drama Empire made international headlines after he claimed he had been attacked by racist, homophobic Donald Trump supporters while walking home late one night.
Smollett told Chicago police he was walking home after getting a Subway about 2am when two masked white men assaulted him, poured bleach over him and placed a noose around his neck while yelling “this is MAGA country” – a reference to the US President’s Make America Great Again slogan.
Despite local media reports suggesting Chicago police strongly doubted the story – Smollett’s claims were run by national and international media for weeks.
THE KAMALA CONNECTION
Ms Harris had a number of noteworthy connections to the case, not least her friendship with Smollett. The two were photographed in January 2018 protesting together at a Kingdom Day Parade in Los Angeles honouring the legacy of Martin Luther King.
The Senator was one of the first major public figures to come out with a statement about the attack, which she used to promote a stalled – and entirely symbolic – “anti-lynching” bill she had co-authored with fellow Senators Cory Booker and Tim Scott.
“(Jussie Smollett) is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I’m praying for his quick recovery,” Ms Harris tweeted shortly after the news broke. “This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or colour of their skin. We must confront this hate.”
In February, after Chicago police had arrested the two brothers and Smollett’s story was beginning to fall apart, Ms Harris appeared caught off guard when questioned about the developments during a campaign appearance at a bookstore in New Hampshire.
Kamala Harris had no problem using inflammatory rhetoric to tie the #JussieSmollettHoax to @realDonaldTrump & his supporters.
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) February 18, 2019
Now that she has the facts, why can't she even remember her divisive language? Why is she giggling about it? pic.twitter.com/imY8lxm89m
A female reporter asked whether Ms Harris wanted to amend her January 29 tweet. “Which tweet? What tweet?” Ms Harris said, looking around for a campaign staffer for assistance.
“OK, so, I will say this about that case. I think that the facts are still unfolding, and, um, I’m very, um, concerned about obviously, the initial, um, allegation that he made about what might have happened,” she said.
“And it’s something we should all take seriously whenever anyone, um, alleges that kind of behaviour, but there should be an investigation. And I think that once the investigation has concluded then we can all comment, but I’m not going to comment until I know the outcome of the investigation.”
Two days after Smollett was charged, Ms Harris issued another statement saying she was “sad, frustrated and disappointed”. “When anyone makes false claims to police, it not only diverts resources away from serious investigations but it makes it difficult for other victims of crime to come forward,” she said.
But she insisted “at the same time, we must speak the truth” that “hate crimes are on the rise in America”. “Just last year, the FBI released statistics that revealed a 17 per cent increase in the number of hate crimes in America,” she said.
“Part of the tragedy of this situation is it distracts from that truth, and has been seized by some who would like to dismiss and downplay the very real problems that we must address.”
In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer shortly after the charges were dropped, Ms Harris said she was “at a loss”. “To be perfectly honest with you, Wolf, I’m completely confused, I don’t understand, I don’t know,” she said.
“I don’t know the underlying evidence, I haven’t, you know, there’s a sealed document obviously, I don’t know, I’m at a loss. I think we’re going to have to leave it up to the judgement of the prosecutor, I think we should leave it up to the judgement of the police chief and the mayor of course to give us some better sense of what’s going on.”
It turns out, Ms Harris happens to also be close with that prosecutor – Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, whose office was behind the decision to drop the charges against Smollett.
In a January 22 tweet, she described the Senator – who co-chaired Ms Foxx’s transition committee after being elected to the office in 2016 – as her inspiration and noted she had “continued to mentor me as I work to reform the criminal justice system in Cook County”.
During the bizarre twists and turns of the case, Ms Foxx was contacted by Tina Tchen, a former assistant to President Barack Obama and chief of staff to Michelle Obama. In an email, Ms Tchen told Ms Foxx she was getting in touch “on behalf of Jussie Smollett and family who I know”, saying “they have concerns about the investigation”.
After the contacts came to light, Ms Foxx claimed she was “recusing” herself from the case. While maintaining she had no role in recommending the charges be dropped, her office was later forced to admit she had not actually recused in a legal sense, which would require the appointment of an outside prosecutor.
“The state’s attorney did not formally recuse herself or the office based on any actual conflict of interest,” her spokeswoman told The Chicago Tribune. “As a result, she did not have to seek the appointment of a special prosecutor under (state law).”
Ms Foxx’s handling of the Smollett case has been a major issue in her re-election campaign as Chicago’s chief prosecutor. In March she beat her main Democratic rival in the party primary, paving her way to a likely win when she faces a Republican opponent in the countywide election in November.
The New York Times described the primary battle as “largely a referendum” on how her office handled the case, with her closest Democratic rival, former prosecutor Bill Conway, accusing her in one commercial of having “rigged the rules for connected celebrities”.
More recently she has been criticised for being too soft on violent crime. City councilman Anthony Napolitano this week called for Ms Foxx to resign after thousands of looters descended on downtown Chicago on Monday causing millions of dollars in damage.
“They looted and rioted in the city and CPD, the Chicago Police Department, locked up the criminals, (but) our state’s attorney let them go,” Mr Napolitano, who variously identifies as independent or Republican, told Fox News
“We average over 500 murders a year, over 2800 shootings per year and our state’s attorney just got credit for letting over 25,000 felony offenders go ... If people don‘t stand up and make a stand right now, draw a line in the sand and get rid of the state’s attorney, this is going to get worse in the greatest city in the country.”
In February, Ms Harris formally endorsed Ms Foxx’s bid for re-election, describing her as a “national model” for criminal justice reform, the Chicago Sun Times reported. “State’s Attorney Foxx, in spite of swimming against the current of a system that is still slow to change, has brought bold and historical change to the Cook County Criminal Justice system,” Ms Harris said in a statement.
“(Ms Foxx is) righting the wrongs of the failed war on drugs in expunging low-level marijuana convictions, leading the nation in exonerating the wrongfully convicted, and reducing mass incarceration by prosecuting on violent crimes instead of over-criminalising nonviolent low-level offences.” Ms Harris did not mention the Smollett controversy.
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