It has been two and a half weeks since Jussie Smollett reported that he was the victim of a hate crime, and in that time, his story has fallen apart completely.  Recent developments in the case have suggested that the Empire actor staged his own assault with the help of two others in a desperate attempt to stay relevant as his character was possibly being written off the show.

A CBS Chicago reporter broke the news Thursday evening that the home of the two "persons of interests" in the widely circulated community alert was raided by Chicago police.  In that raid, they seized a list of items including multiple containers of bleach, a "red hat," an Empire script, a Mossberg rifle, and two computers.  The home is occupied by the two men, and at least one is an extra on Jussie Smollett's show, Empire.  The pair left for their home country of Nigeria immediately after the "attack."

TMZ reported that these men were taken into custody at O'Hare Airport Wednesday night when they re-entered the country and were immediately brought in for questioning by police, who had been monitoring their travels.  An attorney for the two Nigerian men said charges against her clients are expected to be filed on Friday.  According to the TMZ report, Jussie Smollett was picked up Thursday morning and has also been interrogated.  While it is continuing to update its story, it should be noted that TMZ was the first to break Jussie's story and make the first claim that the alleged assault was committed by Trump-supporters.  TMZ's reporters are now reframing the story to represent the hoax that it is.

Jussie Smollett.  Credit: Dominick D via Flickr.

Sources close to Chicago reporters have said the police were able to crack the case after their request for Smollett's call log was denied by the actor.  They subpoenaed the phone records instead and continued to publicly treat Smollett as a victim of a hate crime.  When he finally turned over a PDF file of his call log nearly two weeks later, investigators were able to examine which calls the actor omitted compared to their own official copy.  His own tampering with the call log helped police narrow down which calls were important and who might have assisted in the hoax.

It's not clear whether Smollett was even attacked.  If he was assaulted at the hands of co-conspirators from his own show or if he was attacked randomly (not an unlikely scenario in Chicago) and used it as an opportunity to promote his anti-Trump rhetoric, he has lied and opened himself up to criminal charges.  

The mainstream media are just much as to blame and acted every part of the accomplices.  They used an uncorroborated story and pushed it as if it were real and used it to crucify American culture.  They used phrases like "epidemic of hate crimes" and emotionally charged language to make claims about all Trump-supporters that were always unsubstantiated.

This is only the most highly publicized hate crime hoax since Trump was elected president.  Breitbart keeps a running list of over a hundred others, and most of the perpetrators claimed to have done it to "raise awareness of issues in this country."

This is eerily similar to remarks Smollett already made in his Good Morning America interview, where he declared that he was "pissed" about people who were claiming that this was a hoax along and telling them, "It's not necessarily that you don't believe that this is the truth; you don't even want to see the truth."

 Jussie Smollett has made what fame he had by being a social justice warrior, staunchly opposed to President Trump and creating an identity all about standing up to racism.  I imagine he dealt with a real assault to his worldview when all these MAGA hat-wearing bigots never actually materialized.  He could have re-evaluated his own misaligned beliefs, but instead, he manufactured a fake hate crime in order to validate the idea that American culture is still battling a racist front.

Jussie Smollett; countless celebrities; and the mainstream news, which propagated this hoax as if it were true, have done more to divide Americans along racial lines than the people they are supposedly against.  The demand for racism has far outpaced the supply, so radicals like Smollett now use homemade alternatives.

Smollett once tweeted, "Frauds are everywhere."  I couldn't agree more.

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