President Donald Trump ripped into Chicago prosecutors for dropping 16 felony charges against Jussie Smollett after he allegedly staged a fake attack against himself, calling it a “terrible situation.”
“Despite all that we’ve been forced to endure every day, we are working, and fighting, and winning. Remember that. Because we are making America great again, and we’re making it great for all Americans, all Americans,” Trump said during a rally Thursday in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“And it’s getting to be that time. Very important–MAGA country–you heard the other day? How about in Chicago?” he continued.
“He said, he said, he was attacked by ‘MAGA country.’ Ever hear that one? Maybe the only time I’ve ever agreed with the mayor of Chicago right there. That’s a terrible situation. That’s an embarrassment not only to Chicago, that is an embarrassment to our country, what took place there. Remember that.”
Jussie Smollett, star of the Fox show Empire, was arrested last month on 16 felony counts after he allegedly paid two Nigerian-American men to beat him in a fake racist attack.
The 36-year-old claimed that two Trump supporters attacked him, put a rope around his neck, poured a chemical on him, abused him with racist and homophobic slurs, and yelled “This is MAGA country!” in downtown Chicago in January.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) expressed indignation at the charges being dropped, saying in a press conference this week, “This is a whitewash of justice.”
“Mr. Smollett is still saying that he is innocent, still running down the Chicago police department. How dare him? How dare him? After everybody saw––and I want to remind you, this is not the superintendent’s word against his. The grand jury, a sliver of the evidence, and they came to a conclusion as did the state attorney’s office,” Emanuel said.
“This is not the superintendent and the detectives’ department word against his. And even after this whitewash, there is still no sense of ownership of what he’s done. He says that, in fact, he is the wronged in this case. This is an unbelievable not just whitewash of justice. This is a person now who has not been let off scot-free with no sense of accountability of the moral and ethical wrong of his actions from top to bottom.”