The legal team representing Jussie Smollett is demanding an apology from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who earlier this week called the dismissal of 16 felony charges against the Empire actor a “whitewash of justice.”
“It is the Mayor and the Police Chief who owe Jussie – owe him an apology – for dragging an innocent man’s character through the mud,” Smollett’s lawyers said in a statement Tuesday. “Jussie has paid enough.”
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STATEMENT FROM JUSSIE SMOLLETT'S DEFENSE TEAM REGARDING MAYOR EMMANUEL'S STATEMENT
“It is the Mayor and the Police Chief who owe Jussie – owe him an apology – for dragging an innocent man’s character through the mud. Jussie has paid enough.”
— Charlie De Mar (@CharlieDeMar) March 28, 2019
The response came as Emanuel on Thursday claimed the city would calculate costs of the investigation into Smollett’s hate hoax claims and send him the bill.
“Given that he doesn’t feel any sense of contrition and remorse, my recommendation is that when he writes the check, in the memo section, he can put the words, ‘I’m accountable for the hoax,’” Emanuel said.
Earlier this week, Emanuel blasted the miscarriage of justice that let Smollett off the hook after being indicted by a grand jury on 16 felony charges revolving around his falsification of a police report.
“This is a whitewash of justice,” Emanuel said during a press conference with the Chicago Police. “A grand jury could not have been clearer.”
“I’d like to remind everybody that a grand jury indicted this individual based on only a piece of the evidence that the police had collected in that period of a time. So a grand jury actually brought the charges.”
“Where is the accountability in the system?” he added. “You cannot have, because of a person’s position, one set of rules apply to them and another set of rules apply to everybody else.”
While the dropped charges do not represent an exoneration, Smollett’s legal team has gone to great lengths to portray their client as “innocent,” despite various glaring inconsistencies in the actor’s story.
One attorney representing Smollett, for instance, on Thursday suggested in a TV interview that the two Nigerian brothers hired to attack the actor could have been wearing whiteface, which fits the description of the suspects Smollett first gave to police.
On Thursday President Trump also commented on the dismissal of the actor’s felony charges, saying the DOJ and FBI will take a look at the case.
FBI & DOJ to review the outrageous Jussie Smollett case in Chicago. It is an embarrassment to our Nation!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2019
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