Leaks and statements from the Chicago Police Department make it clear the attention-seeking leftist black actor, who happens to be gay, tried to persuade the public that he was the victim of a Trump inspired hate crime. His claim turned to farce when it was exposed that the so-called white MAGA hat wearing attackers were Nigerian born friends of his leading one wag to claim this was the first time Nigerians had fallen for an American scam.

Jussie Smollett’s fake hate crime blaming Trump supporters has now been exposed as a hate crime of its own. And, as it turns out, we’ve seen this movie before. Too many times. Frankly, it’s getting tiresome. And it’s high time the gullible leftist media begins to show some skepticism when these types of incidents are reported.

The pattern is clear. In an ongoing effort to discredit President Trump and white conservative males, the bizarro left loves to fabricate stories that portray themselves as victims of hate. It’s a shameful practice that borders on mental illness.

The pattern became noticeable during Trump’s run 2016 run for the presidency. It was so bad the Daily Caller labeled 2016 as “The Year of The Hoax Hate Crime.” An example:

“Three black women at the University of Albany earned media coverage from liberal outlets like CNN in February when they claimed a white mob followed them onto a bus, hurling racial slurs and later attacking them. The alleged attack even caught the attention of Hillary Clinton, who sent a personal tweet stating “There’s no excuse for racism and violence on a college campus.” There’s just one problem: the students made the whole thing up.”

But things really got going after Trump’s election. Here’s just a sampling.

The day after the election, Eleesha Long, a student at Bowling Green University in Ohio said white males wearing Trump shirts threw rocks at her and hurled racial slurs. The alleged incident sparked rage on the campus and the university hosted a town hall. Guess what? Long also made it all up. Investigators said her text messages allegedly revealed her frustration with friends and family who were Trump supporters.

Later that month, University of Michigan student Halley Bass told police that a Trump supporter attacked her by scratching her face. She said she was targeted for wearing a pin in support of Brexit. As her story fell apart, she admitted to scratching herself.

In Chicago in November, Taylor Volk, a bisexual student at North Park University, said she received hateful pro-Trump, anti-gay messages. “This is a countrywide epidemic all of a sudden,” she said. Speaking of epidemics, investigators determined that she fabricated the story.

Also in 2016, a Muslim student at the University of Michigan claimed a white man who threatened to burn her hijab attacked her. CAIR claimed the attack was “just the latest anti-Muslim incident reported since the election of Donald Trump as president.” It was a lie, of course. A similar incident happened in New York City, after Baruch College student Yasmin Seweid claimed three drunken white men yelled "Donald Trump!" and anti-Islam slurs at her on the subway and tried to grab her hijab. Police announced that Seweid invented the story to get out of trouble with her family after drinking with her friends and breaking her curfew. She has been charged with filing a false report.

But the hoax hate crimes didn’t end in 2016.

In April 2017, Curtis Flournoy set an immigrant-owned business in Charlotte on fire leaving a note saying, “Our newly elected president Donald Trump is our nation builder for white America. You all know that, we want our country back on the right track. We need to get rid of Muslims, Indians and all immigrants. Specially (sic), we don't want business run by refugees and immigrant any more (sic). When cameras showed the perpetrator was black, some leftwing websites went to far as to claim that it was a white Trump supporter in disguise. Flournoy was arrested by police for hate crime and arson.

In Kansas in November 2017, Riley County police said a man admitted he painted racist slurs on his own car. I wonder what it cost him to repaint the car?

In the fall of 2018, a note was left at a Kansas State apartment that read “beware n***ers live here. Knock at your own risk.” The so-called victim admitted to police that the person (sex unidentified) did it him/herself. In fact this was the second time this person had fabricated a hate incident in two years. It’s interesting that the police did not reveal the sex or the race of the liar.

Who remembers when Trump was blamed for the spate of death threats to Jewish community centers across the US in the summer of 2017? Juan Thompson, a serial liar who worked for The Intercept as a reporter, was convicted of hoax threats and other offenses. He authored a 5,000-word account in which he described a racist smear campaign by the Intercept against him. He wrote that the outlet saw him only as “the token Negro whisperer.” He even claimed a white ex-girlfriend threatened to kill President Trump. It was another lie.

In November 2017 near Kansas State University, a black man’s car was vandalized with racist messages. Classes were cancelled and students held demonstrations. The FBI even opened a civil rights investigation into a possible hate crime. Eventually, Dauntarius Williams admitted to police that he did it to himself. By the way, that hoax came on the heels of a string of incidents at the school. Earlier in October, an anti-gay slur was found outside the university student union. In September, white supremacist fliers had been found on campus. And in May, a noose was found hanging from a campus tree. Anyone recognize the pattern?

Right after Trump’s election, the Southern Poverty Law Center stoked panic when it claimed a pro-gay Episcopal church in Indiana was vandalized with “Heil Trump”, a swastika and an anti-gay slur. Turns out, it was the gay organ player who did it.

In November last year, days after the Pittsburgh massacre, Trump supporters were blamed for Nazi vandalism at a Brooklyn synagogue and fires in a Jewish community center. Police revealed the perpetrator was a gay black man who had worked with city council on an initiative to fight hate crimes. James Polite was busted a day after he allegedly wrote “Kill All Jews,” in the stairwell of historic Union Temple in Prospect Heights. Polite had also recently set a string of fires — including in the closet of Yeshiva Beth Hillel of Williamsburg, and smaller blazes in the trash outside three other nearby Jewish institutions. You just can’t make it up.

This is just a small sampling of the hoax crimes blaming Trump, Jews and white conservatives that have been properly investigated and reported since 2016. These examples don’t mean that all hate crimes against minorities are hoaxes. But it certainly means that all such incidents need to be investigated before the anti-Trump media wildly thrashes around taking the incidents at face value and giving them credibility. Enough is enough. Time to close this movie theater.

Frank Hawkins is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, Associated Press foreign correspondent, international businessman, senior newspaper company executive, founder and owner of several marketing companies, and published novelist. He currently lives in retirement in North Carolina.