‘Frustrated’ Jussie Smollett says he ‘wakes up in the morning so angry’ at being accused of faking race attack

Jussie Smollett maintained his innocence in an impassioned interview ahead of his court appearance. Smollett is accused of staging a racist and homophobic attack on himself. Smollett calls the case frustrating and does not think the case will be finished soon. Smollett’s lawyers filed a motion against his indictment, which will be reviewed by a judge.

It has been beyond frustrating, and Smollett certainly is not going rogue. Smollett is still taking the advice of his attorneys and everything like that, but he does not really see what staying quiet has really done, where it has gotten him. It is so much bigger than Smollett. Smollett, an openly gay Black actor, was originally indicted in March 2019 with 16 counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false report claiming two men attacked him on January 29th 2019, while also making racist and homophobic slurs.

Smollett pleaded not guilty to allegations that he lied to police about the incident, which authorities later claimed he had staged with two acquaintances to draw attention to himself. These were later dropped by the office of Cook County State’s Attorney. In February 2020 Smollett pleaded not guilty to a six-count indictment which revived the disorderly conduct allegations previously filed and then dropped in the case.

Jussie Smollett has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

There is an example being made and the sad thing is there is an example being made of someone who did not do what they are accused of. Smollett sees how Chicago Police played the narrative, the way that they served it to the people that it was intentionally created to make people doubt from the very beginning. From the very beginning, it was made to seem that Smollett was lying about something or everything.

The city of Chicago have requested that the FBI hand over records of their own probe into Smollett’s case. Sometimes Smollett wakes up in the morning and he is so angry, other times he wakes up and if he squints really hard, he can see the silver lining. The one thing Smollett always wakes up and think no matter how he feels is that this is an opportunity to have a real conservation in the communities about truth.

The thing that really gets Smollett is the fact that there are black and brown men and women behind bars for things they did not do. Smollett is certainly well informed about the plight. What happened in these last two years has humbled Smollett in a way that nobody could possibly understand. The saga around Smollett began on January 30th 2019, when it emerged he claimed he had been the victim of a racist, anti-gay attack.

At the time, it seemed Jussie Smollett had been walking home from Subway in the middle of the night after returning home late on a delayed flight when he was approached.

Smollett told police afterwards his attackers identified him from the show he was on, “Empire”, and called him both the N-word and f****t. Smollett said they beat him, poured bleach on him, then put a noose around his neck. Smollett went back to his apartment where his friend, Frank Gaston, was. It was Gaston who insisted they call police. When officers arrived, Smollett refused to hand over his phone.

Smollett went to the hospital to be checked over but had no major injuries. The Chicago Police Department vowed to investigate the incident with all its might, and celebrities around the world rushed to share their support of Smollett. But as the police investigation progressed, leaks began from within the police department that all may not have been as it seemed.

As the controversy grew, Smollett determined to make his case, went on “Good Morning America” in February 2019 where he cried and insisted he was telling the truth. By then, Chicago Police Department had released grainy surveillance camera footage of two men walking near the scene of the incident itself which was among the only part of his journey not captured on Chicago’s vast network of security cameras that night. Smollett unequivocally identified the two men in the grainy footage as his attackers.

Neither their faces nor skin color could be made out in it.

Unbeknownst to Smollett, the Chicago Police Department was building a case against him. The Chicago Police Department had identified the people in the video as the Osundairo brothers and had backed-up their belief by tracking the pair’s movements in the days and hours both before and after the incident. Smollett was eventually arrested and charged with suspicion of lying to police.

The Osundairo brothers flew to Nigeria within hours of the January 29th 2020 incident and missed the media storm which followed. When the Osundairo brothers landed back in the United States, police investigators were waiting to question them. After hours of secret interviews, the Osundairo brothers told cops that Smollett had paid them to carry out the attack as part of an elaborate hoax.

Smollett was then arrested. Then police chief Eddie Gallagher accused Smollett of inflaming race relations in Chicago and of wasting police time. Gallagher said that Smollett had tried to leverage the attack to get his bosses at “Empire” to pay him more. Despite police outrage, prosecutor Kim Foxx was quiet. The case then went to a grand jury which returned a stunning, 16-felony indictment that would have put Smollett behind bars for more than 50 years if he had been convicted.

By then, Foxx had informally recused herself from the case.

Foxx’s conflict of interest was that in the early days of the police investigation, she intervened at the request of Smollett’s family and their friend, Time’s Up CEO Tina Tchen, who wanted the FBI to take over the police investigation. Smollett’s family and friend said they were worried by the number of leaks that had come from the Chicago Police Department and asked Foxx to help. Foxx said she would try.

After the grand jury indictment, the case stalled for a few weeks. Then, in March 2020, Foxx’s deputy Joseph Magats, who had taken over, announced the decision that the charges against Smollett had been dropped. Foxx had intervened again, it emerged, and pointed to what they called alternative prosecution whereby Smollett, a first-time offender, was let off with a $10,000 bail forfeiture and community service.

There was outrage and calls for Foxx to be investigated herself for prosecutorial misconduct. As judges and special prosecutors for that task were tossed around, the city came out swinging in civil court. The city sued Smollett, asking him to reimburse it for all the money it had wasted investigating what it believed was bogus claims. Smollett counter-sued, accusing the city and Eddie Gallagher of malicious prosecution.

Jussie Smollett lost his job on “Empire” and became a pariah in the showbiz world he was allegedly trying to ascend through.

Special prosecutor Dan Webb was appointed in August 2020 to investigate why Foxx’s office had dropped the charges. Webb himself faced criticism and claims of another conflict of interest when it emerged he had donated $1,000 to Foxx’s re-election campaign once.