The Cook County prosecutor defended the decisions she made during the Jussie Smollett case, saying that dropping all of the charges against the actor was the right thing to do.
In a column for the Chicago Tribune, Kimberly Foxx also said that she welcomed an outside review of her office’s conduct during the case. Foxx also made it clear that Smollett “has not been exonerated; he has not been found innocent.”
Smollett had faced 16 charges for allegedly lying to police about a hate crime for an incident in which police alleged the black and gay actor paid two brothers $3,500 to yell racist and homophobic slurs, tie a rope around his neck, and pour bleach on him in January.
Foxx, who called some of her critics “fearmongers,” wrote that “it seems politically expedient right now to question my motives and actions.”
A number of outside groups, like the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, have already called for an outside investigation into Foxx’s handling of the matter, and there are reports that federal investigators are looking into it as well. President Trump himself tweeted just a few days ago: “FBI & DOJ to review the outrageous Jussie Smollett case in Chicago. It is an embarrassment to our Nation!”
The Chicago Police Department released some of the investigative files related to the case following Smollett’s charges being dropped, but a court ordered them to stop.
Foxx said that she’d like to provide more details on the case but that her office is barred from releasing those records without Smollett’s approval.
But Foxx wrote that Smollett isn’t in prison or at least on trial because not only wasn’t she sure they’d be able to convict Smollett, but also because his crimes made the community angry, not afraid.
“We must separate the people at whom we are angry from the people of whom we are afraid. I am angry at anyone who falsely reports a crime. I am afraid when I see a little girl shot dead while sitting on her mother’s lap. I am afraid when I see a CPD commander slain by a four-time felon who was walking the streets,” she wrote.
But the Illinois Prosecutors Bar Association has harshly criticized her legal decision-making, saying: “The manner in which this case was dismissed was abnormal and unfamiliar to those who practice law in criminal courthouses across the State.”
“Even more problematic, the State’s Attorney and her representatives have fundamentally misled the public on the law and circumstances surrounding the dismissal,” the Illinois Prosecutors Bar Association said.
The Chicago Police Department is not happy that the charges were dropped against Smollett, and the city is sending him a bill for the cost of the investigation, estimated at $130,000.
