Americans are about to be treated to a highly entertaining and important unraveling of a hate crime hoax in court, as Chicago gets a green light from a federal judge to proceed with a lawsuit attempting to recover police costs expended on Jussie Smollett's fake hate crime report.

Jason Meisner of the Chicago Tribune:

A federal judge gave the go-ahead Tuesday to the city of Chicago's lawsuit against Jussie Smollett that seeks reimbursement from the former "Empire" actor for police overtime in the investigation of his alleged hoax attack in January. In denying Smollett's motion to dismiss, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall said that "it isn't unreasonable to think" Chicago police would have vigorously investigated Smollett's bombshell report that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack, particularly given his celebrity and the "volatile climate" of the times.

Hate crime hoaxes are a cancer on American society, ginning up racial hatred where none existed and wasting police and other official resources. They obscure the tremendous progress American society has made and take a huge toll on both the purported victims and the purported offenders. The fakehatecrimes.org website currently lists 374 examples of the genre of hoax that troubles America. The perpetrators of the hoaxes all too often escape real punishment, even when they are discovered.

But now, America has a celebrity hate crime hoax, one involving someone too prominent to ignore, and whose political connections extend to the Obamas' inner circle of advisers. Jussie Smollett libeled President Trump an and his supporters by arranging a drama for the security cameras that seemed to show Trump hat–wearing supporters attacking him on a subzero Chicago street in the wee hours of the morning in a scenario so ridiculous that cops immediately suspected a hoax. But, in order to appease the racial demagogues who would immediately pounce on any perceived underplaying of the incident, Chicago police let slide many murder cases in order to devote detectives to the fake case.

Illinois allows the televising of trials only if the state Supreme Court allows it. Given the high profile and strong public interest, I hope the justices see their way to permit it in this case. But I am not optimistic, since the case generally is embarrassing for Democrats.

Photo credit: Dominick D.