The nightmare would be a televised trial over the felonious filing of a false police report and other possible charges. Yesterday, two famous progs started the campaign to treat Jussie as a victim of a psychiatric malady and therefore properly given treatment, not a prison sentence of up to three years.

The specter of a new "trial of the century" for Jussie Smollett, over what looks like his staging of a fake hate crime, is scaring the leaders of the identity politics movement that dominates the Democratic Party. Two presidential candidates, Cory Booker and Smollett's longstanding friend and associate, Kamala Harris, immediately endorsed and exploited the burst of saturation coverage by the national media to hype the "anti-lynching law" they have been using to burnish their credentials with the victimologist constituency.

Rep. Eric Swalwell has taken time off from his incessant unproven claims of Trump collusion with Russia to express sympathy for poor Jussie and "hope he gets the help he needs."

Rep. Eric Swalwell on Jussie Smollett: "I hope that this was not something that was Mr. Smollett did to himself, or created, and if that is the case, I hope he gets the help that he needs." pic.twitter.com/kEBhkP3JpI — The Hill (@thehill) February 19, 2019

I am certain that he does not regard a stretch in Stony Lonesome as "help." More like an expensive, cushy, private psychiatric hospital, the sort of place other celebrities go for "recovery" from substance abuse and sexual predation charges. Because Swalwell is "very close" to making his 2020 presidential campaign announcement, he has a lot at stake in maintaining the narrative that keeps blacks and gays on the Democrats' plantation.

Charles Blow, the race-obsessed New York Times editorial board member, thinks Smollett — a "most gracious person" — must be insane, or at least a psychopath. The possibility that he carefully calculated a stunt that (had it not been botched) could have made him a superstar does not seem to occur to him (one-minute video):

The Chicago Police Department wisely is keeping as tight a lid as possible on its investigation because premature official disclosure could damage the trial. But leaks by rank-and-file cops to local Chicago media (who have shown up the national media for the shallow drive-by propagandists they are) and careful analysis primarily by conservative bloggers allow us to put together a plausible hypothesis of the actual plan Smollett had in mind — a plan that could have worked and catapulted him into the ranks of civil rights heroes, political influencers, and multimedia superstars.

Of course, I must include the disclaimer that all the facts are not yet on the table and that we can't say with 100% certainty that Smollett hoaxed us. So, yes, he is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and what follows is supposition based on unofficial information. That said, we're not morons, so we can put two and two together and tentatively infer what the plan was.

John Nolte of Breitbart has done exactly that in a must-read article.

The most important dot to connect to all ... comes from Smollett himself, who told Good Morning America (GMA) last week that he suspected a surveillance camera caught the whole incident. Speaking to GMA's Robin Roberts, Smollett said, "And I looked up and I saw there was a camera directly on the light post that is in the intersection. So I'm like, 'there it is!' ... And then the detective told me that the camera inside of the casing was facing north, so they didn't have it, and that was disappointing." That detail appears to stick in his craw. Later in the interview, unprompted, he brings it up again: "The camera facing north, how is that my issue?"



File photo via Flickr.

Here is the full 16-minute interview. (Roberts's softball approach to a story that already had big holes showing is already causing her grief.)

So it appears that Smollett intended the staged attack to be recorded but botched the location because he did not realize that the CCTV surveillance camera was pointed in the opposite direction. Recall that the Nigerian brothers — one an extra on his show, the other his personal trainer — reportedly rehearsed the attack with Smollett, meaning that this professional actor was probably able to stage a convincing video. The very night of the failed staging for the surveillance camera, Smollett has just returned from New York City, where he had performed hours before a startlingly similar scenario, as the U.K. Daily Mail reports:

DailyMail.com has learned that Smollett landed in Chicago shortly after midnight following a lengthy plane delay out of LaGuardia. He had been in New York City for a reading of the play Take Me Out, with sources telling DailyMail.com that Smollett was being considered to appear in a possible revival of the Tony-winning production about a biracial baseball star who comes out as gay. The script for that play finds the lead character being attacked by a new pitcher who joins the team. That character uses the same racial slurs Smollett told police his attackers screamed at him, including 'f-----' and 'n-----.'

Nolte continues:

[I]t's easy to see what he could have gained — had the altercation occurred in front of any of the other cameras he walked past that night. First off, he despises Trump and, it seems, Trump's supporters, and this was an easy way to smear both, especially in a world with a corrupt media that is always eager to spread any kind of fake news or hoax that makes Trump or his supporters look evil. There is also Smollett's debut album, which is scheduled to hit store shelves on March 2, and the live performances promoting the album, which began just a few days after the attack. ... Imagine what it would have done to this country and to the city of Chicago if the attack had been recorded, if an outlet like TMZ had leaked the video, and if the wildly irresponsible race baiters at CNN had broadcast that video over and over and over again — an endless loop of two men assaulting a gay, black man; pouring bleaching [sic] on him and tying a noose around his neck. It would have been just like that other media hoax — "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" — and we all know what that led to: the destruction of a predominantly black neighborhood in the ensuing riots.

Those of us old enough to remember the 1992 riots in Los Angeles triggered by endless broadcasts of the (edited) tape of police officers beating Rodney King understand the potential for civil strife had similar media treatment been possible for the fictional "MAGA attack." Would the Chicago Police Department have been able to devote major resources to investigating the signs of hoax had video been available? Consider the demonization heaped upon skeptics of Smollett's tale, claims that they were victimizing him again. Video evidence would have closed the case, in my opinion. Police superintendent Eddie Johnson likely would have denied requests to investigate any of the red flags in Smollett's tale had the city been wracked by riots.

It almost worked, but for Smollett choosing the wrong CCTV camera for his stunt. Now it is a crisis for Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Robin Roberts, and many other pols (like Nancy Pelosi, who deleted her tweet on the attack) and media figures who jumped on the incident, accepting Smollett's tale as gospel and victimizing me and every other Trump-supporter.