CHICAGO — Maybe it's time for City Hall to call off former Mayor Rahm Emanuel's pound-of-flesh lawsuit against disgraced "Empire" actor and accused hate-crime faker Jussie Smollett.

What started as an allegedly righteous effort to force Smollett to repay the more than $130,000 it cost the city to investigate the actor's bogus claim white guys in MAGA hats put a rope around his neck, called him racial slurs and beat him up as the polar vortex rolled into town last year, has unfortunately devolved into another City Hall law department attempt to cover for a lying cop. Former police Supt. Eddie Johnson, that is.

Johnson, you'll remember, made a big stink about how Smollett's lies tarnished Chicago's reputation. "The accusations within this phony attack received national attention for weeks," Johnson said back then. "Celebrities, news commentators and even presidential candidates weighed in on something that was choreographed by an actor."

What a difference a year makes. Last week, Smollett's lawyers filed subpoenas for documents that might prove to a federal jury former police Supt. Johnson has a credibility problem, and suggests the city has a different set of accountability standards for cops and civilians.

A former top prosecutor told me the subpoena was a legal "Hail Mary" — nothing short of a publicity stunt —to further embarrass Johnson about the Smollett-like phoniness that got the top cop fired for lying to Mayor Lori Lightfoot about the night beat cops caught him passed out behind the wheel of his police vehicle after a night of drinking and kissing with a woman who wasn't his wife.

But the whole Johnson affair (and the alleged police cover-up) was more than that. Like Smollett's fake hate crime, the scandal that got Johnson fired damaged the reputation of a police department struggling to overcome a legacy of corruption.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Supt. Johnson, Chicago's face of alleged police reform, lied to her face in attempt to cover up his misconduct. And there's an ongoing investigation into whether the "Thin Blue Line" code of silence that still exists in the department spun into action to keep the truth secret at least until Johnson could retire with a full pension. The former prosecutor said there's not much hope that Johnson's troubles will interfere with the city's civil case against Smollett. City lawyers will move to squash the subpoena and likely win. Even if Smollett's attorneys get documentation of Johnson's lies from the city inspector general, he said, the city will likely win motions to keep a jury from hearing the details.