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A Chicago judge appointed a special prosecutor on Friday to investigate Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s handling of the investigation into Jussie Smollett’s alleged hoax hate crime. Judge Michael Toomin said that Foxx’s unorthodox decision to drop all charges against Smollett absent an admission of guilt was within her authority, but suggested that her decision to hand the case over to her top deputy was improper. The special prosecutor may end up bringing charges against Smollett in connection with the staged hate crime, Toomin said. Former state appellate judge Sheila O’Brien petitioned for the appointment of a special prosecutor...

Daniels opened up to Vulture -- in a new interview published Tuesday -- after he was asked about how Smollett alleged he'd been the victim of a hate crime, a claim Chicago cops later refuted, accusing the "Empire" actor of staging the entire episode to get a pay raise and to drum up publicity for his career. Smollett has maintained his innocence, strongly denying the accusations. . . . "I’m beyond embarrassed," the 59-year-old director and producer, who initially publicly supported Smollett, told the outlet. "I think that when it happened, I had a flash of me running from bullies....

“Jussie [Smollett] will NOT be returning to ‘Empire,'” series co-creator Lee Daniels said Tuesday. Daniels was responding to a Variety report in which multiple production sources said that “Empire’s” writing staff was breaking ideas for the show’s sixth and final season with the expectation that Smollett would appear in the back half of the 18-episode season. This is the first public acknowledgment that Smollett will not return for the final season of the Fox drama series. He was written out of the final episodes of the show’s fifth season following severe backlash stemming from accusations the actor and musician faked...

t least 42 people were shot, seven fatally, in Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend even as severe storms kept people indoors and 1,200 extra officers patrolled the streets. The toll was slightly higher than last year’s Memorial Day weekend, when 39 people were shot, seven of them fatally, according to shooting data kept by the Tribune. In 2017, 45 people were shot, seven of them killed. And in 2016, 71 people shot, six of them fatally, in one of the most violent Memorial Day weekends in recent years. “That is just an unacceptable state of affairs,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot...

Actor Jussie Smollett, who faked an anti-black, anti-gay hate crime against himself in the dead of the Chicago winter, and then escaped charges on likely political connections for filing a false police report, is starting to inspire copy cats looking for the same sweet deal. Here's one from New York from the New York Post: A Manhattan straphanger who claimed to have been attacked by two men yelling gay slurs was actually the one doing the attacking, according to police. Cops say the 25-year-old, who has not been identified, set upon the two men at the Chambers St. station in Tribeca...

President Donald Trump ripped television actor Jussie Smollett on Saturday, after the actor’s embarrassing hoax accusing Trump supporters of attacking him. “In addition to great incompetence and corruption, The Smollett case in Chicago is also about a Hate Crime,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

The newly unsealed Jussie Smollett court files that were released late on Thursday reveal little of note from the Empire actor's case but show how the State's Attorney asked the Office of the Inspector General's to investigate her handling of it. The files were made public on Thursday by a judge who agreed with media lawyers that Smollett had no right to privacy because he had spoken openly about the case to defend himself. The Cook County court record was unsealed and contained 250 pages of previously unseen paperwork but nothing in it was of particular note. Among the document...

The former chief of staff to Michelle Obama evaded a subpoena Wednesday from retired Illinois Appellate Judge Sheila O’Brien. O’Brien wants Tchen to hand over records related to her conversations with Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx regarding the ‘Empire’ actor. Chicago attorney Tina Tchen — who was in contact with Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx before the charges were dropped against former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett — refused to be served with a subpoena on Wednesday, according to the process server. Tchen, who previously served as former First Lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, refused to accept a...

Tina Tchen, the former chief of staff to first lady Michelle Obama, declined Wednesday to be served with a subpoena by a retired Illinois judge seeking the appointment of a special prosecutor in the Jussie Smollett case, according to the process server. In an email to former Illinois appellate judge Sheila O'Brien obtained by Fox News, the process server wrote that a security guard at the Chicago law firm where Tchen is a partner "called up to her and spoke with her and she said that she in [sic] never going to accept service and to not allow me up...

Illinois Republicans unhappy at the influence the Democrat-controlled city of Chicago holds over the state are looking at trying to blow the Windy City out of the state altogether -- despite the long odds that such a push would face. A new report by Pew Trusts' Stateline shines light on an effort by the state’s GOP to turn the state red by turning the blue city into its own state.

"Law and Order" fans, how's this for an episode? A retired judge calls for a special prosecutor to examine how Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx mishandled the notorious case of actor Jussie Smollett -- a case abandoned under peculiar circumstances that imply Foxx improperly gave the celebrity special and unfair treatment by dropping charges that he had faked and lied about a racist, homophobic attack by supporters of President Trump. The effort by Foxx's office to pre-empt appointment of a special prosecutor only intensifies questions: What's the full list of outsiders who sought to influence Foxx? Who motivated a...

The Washington Post is discounting America’s win in World War Two because American forces were all “racists.” I guess that we now have to delete America’s part in World War Two from the history books to suit liberal sensibilities just like we are erasing statues to military people all across the nation. The attack on the Allied Forces in WWII came in an idiotic liberal article with the unwieldy title of, “Allied leaders were anti-Nazi, but not anti-racist. We’re now paying the price for their failure.” The article by a foaming-at-the-mouth lib named John Broich — who claims to be...

A hearing on a request for a special prosecutor in the Jussie Smollett case quickly switched its focus Thursday from the “Empire” actor to the judge on the bench. The proceedings grew unexpectedly heated when Sheila O’Brien, a retired appellate judge pushing for the special prosecutor, filed last-minute paperwork suggesting that Cook County Judge LeRoy Martin Jr. recuse himself from deciding the issue because his son has worked as a county prosecutor since last year. . . . Martin’s son, LeRoy III, who has been with the state’s attorney’s office since April 2018, works as a prosecutor in the juvenile...

FULL TITLE: Ellen Page ‘Late Show’ Interview Blaming Trump and Pence for Jussie Smolett Hate Hoax Has 18 Million Views Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last month, the actress took particular aim at Pence over his long-held opposition to same-sex marriage. “The vice president of America wishes I didn’t have the love with my wife,” Ellen Page explained. “If you are in a position of power and you hate people, and you want to cause suffering to them, you go through the trouble, you spend your career trying to cause suffering, what do you think is going...

CHICAGO (AP) — Police have arrested a Chicago alderman on charges alleging that he lied when he reported his car had been stolen in January. Police say a news release that Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno was arrested Tuesday night on felony charges of insurance fraud and obstruction of justice. He's scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday. Moreno reported on Jan. 4 that his car was missing.

Every time I think American sports teams can’t get any dumber, they get dumber. Last month the Philadelphia Flyers took down the statue of a woman who raised hundreds of millions of dollars to fight the Nazis because of a satirical song she sang in the 1930’s and now the Chicago Cubs are banning a fan for flashing the okay hand gesture during a live broadcast. Really, I swear to God, this happened. It all started on May 7th when Chicago Cubs sideline reporter Doug Glanville gave a report and a fan behind him, whose face we can’t see, flashed...

She's been called "Kerosene Maxine" and gaveled off the House floor for accusing Republican men of badgering women. She dismissed President Donald Trump and his allies as thugs and predicted his impeachment before he was sworn into office. No one, Maxine Waters once observed, should be surprised by her. But after nearly three decades in Congress, the 80-year-old California lawmaker is in an eye-opening role as the highest-ranking African American woman in the country. She's wielding the gavel of the bank-regulating Financial Services Committee with the power to investigate Trump where some say it counts most: his business dealings. The...

I went from almost a judge to being fired within the space of forty-eight hours. Why? Because it came out that I was a conservative. I had read stories about conservatives being blacklisted, fired, having their careers and reputations destroyed because of their political views. Never once did I dream it could happen to me, an insignificant lawyer in an insignificant part of the country. But just this past week the nightmare happened, and I learned firsthand the consequences of running against the leftist hive that dominates our world. I live in Lake County, Indiana -- the Chicago suburbs at...

“Has everybody had a good time tonight?” Obama asked the audience at a 2016 White House event. “… Jussie Smollett!” Smollett smiled and clapped, beaming with excitement. Who wouldn’t be beaming after performing for the president and the first lady? It was obvious that he was having good time. Clearly, he was becoming somebody. A real Hollywood somebody, star of the TV show “Empire” with important connections. Smollett became such a somebody that Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office inexplicably cut him loose from criminal charges, dropping 16 grand jury counts against him for allegedly fabricating a racial hate...

Unredacted title: Smollet Crushed after Osundairos Blast Huge Lawsuit! This Changes Everything Video at link.