Donald Trump has described Jussie Smollett as a “con man” and likened the disgraced TV actor’s false police report about being attacked by Trump supporters to “a hate crime in reverse.”
During an interview with Fox News on Friday, the former US president said Smollett – who was found guilty of disorderly conduct for the hate hoax this week – would be in “jail for 25 years for hate crimes for what he did and for what he said” if he was a Republican.
This is really a hate crime. Sort of a hate crime in reverse. And he’s not going to get away with it.
On Thursday, a Chicago jury found Smollett guilty of five of six counts of felony disorderly conduct for filing a false police report in the infamous January 2019 incident. Smollett had claimed that two white men wearing ‘Make America Great Again’ hats assaulted him, tied a noose around his neck and doused him in bleach while making racial and anti-gay slurs.
After the story made international headlines, it emerged that the 39-year-old ‘Empire’ actor had paid $3,500 to two Nigerian bodybuilders he knew to stage the elaborate hate crime so he could accuse Republicans of racism and homophobia. During the trial, prosecutors said Smollett had planned the hoax in order to raise his salary at the television network.
Branding Smollett a “con man,” Trump said the fake attack was an “absolute con job” that was intended to “try and get sympathy so he could get his contract renewed for his ridiculous television series and that didn’t work out too well.”
Smollett, who faces up to three years in prison, plans to appeal the conviction. Following the verdict, politicians who initially backed the actor after the purported attack – including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris – have been widely mocked for their previous comments and current silence on the issue.
Both Biden and Harris’ tweets of support at the time – including one tweet in which the vice president labelled the alleged attack a “modern day lynching” – have been widely circulated. Republican National Committee Chairperson Ronna McDaniel criticized Biden for “playing politics.”
Kyle Rittenhouse, Jussie Smollett … Biden never misses an opportunity to play politics and prejudge cases before he has all the facts.https://t.co/Llftm3KMvZ
