Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said she was "confused" about how "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett had all 16 of his charges suddenly dropped in the case of his allegedly fabricated hate crime.

Harris is a former prosecutor, so CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked her about the surprising development at the end of a segment on his show Tuesday.

What did she say?

"You're a former prosecutor. You understand the law. What do you think about what happened to Jussie Smollett in Chicago?" Blitzer asked.

Harris laughed before responding.

"To be perfectly honest with you, Wolf, I'm completely confused," Harris replied. "I don't understand. I don't know — I don't know the underlying evidence, there's a sealed document, obviously. I don't know. I'm at a loss. I think we're going to have to leave it up to the judgment of the prosecutor, I think we should leave it up to the judgment of the police chief, and the mayor, of course, to give us some better sense of what's going on. I don't know. I'm confused. I'm confused.

"If you're confused, then all of us are confused," Blitzer said.

What did she say when it happened?



Back in January, Harris condemned the alleged attack with strong language.

"@JussieSmollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know," Harris wrote on Twitter. "I'm praying for his quick recovery. This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate."

As it turned out, police found significant evidence that Smollett staged the entire thing and paid some associates to fake a Trump-inspired hate crime for attention. He was charged with 16 counts of disorderly conduct. After the charges were hastily dropped Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was also quite confused.

"From top to bottom, this is not on the level," Emanuel said. "Where's the accountability in the system?"