CLAIMS FALTER, SHOW A RUSH TO JUDGMENT
Trump supporters blast ‘racist’ label
Actor Jussie Smollett’s claims that Trump fans targeted him with a brutal hate crime continued to fall apart over the weekend — and local MAGA supporters say they’re sick and tired of everyone jumping at every chance to smear them as a bunch of racists.
“People can just throw the word ‘racist’ out there without any real justification or dialogue about it, and it becomes something that becomes very hard to defend,” said Geoff Diehl, a former state rep and U.S. senate candidate who cochaired Trump’s campaign in Massachusetts.
Smollett, who is black and gay, told Chicago police that he was physically attacked last month by two masked men shouting racist and anti-gay slurs and telling him, “This is MAGA country!”
The actor and singer said the attackers looped a rope around his neck and poured a chemical on him before running away as he was returning home from an early morning stop at a Subway restaurant in downtown Chicago.
Police originally investigated the report as a hate crime, but sources have told various media outlets that the department now suspects Smollett set the whole thing up himself.
The wheels started to fall off of Smollett’s claims after detectives questioned two brothers about the attack and released them late Friday without charges, according to a police spokesman, who said cops now want to talk to the actor again.
Anne Kavanagh, spokeswoman for Smollett, said Sunday she couldn’t comment on whether he had agreed to another interview with police.
The police had described the two men as persons of interest, but said they are no longer under suspicion after interviewing them and searching their apartment.
One of the men is Smollett’s personal trainer, whom the actor hired to help get him physically ready for a music video,
Smollett’s attorneys said in a statement.
Smollett’s lawyers also said late Saturday that the actor felt “victimized” by reports that he played a role in the assault, adding that, “Nothing is further from the truth and anyone claiming otherwise is lying.”
Local fans of President Trump, however, say the rush to conclusions is just the latest in a series of incidents where the media and the political left was quick to exploit an incident that could be used to make the president and his supporters look bad.
New Hampshire state Rep. Al Baldasaro, a former Trump campaign adviser, said, “Anything dealing with Trump, they’re jumping on the bandwagon without looking at the facts. It gets aggravating — they keep saying it over and over that we’re racist.”
Alex Veras, a Republican from Haverhill, said liberals are going after Trump like this because they’re “at their wits’ end” — and that kind of response just lends credence to Trump’s claims that the media and left are out to get him.
Veras, who himself is Hispanic, added of Smollett, “He did a grave injustice to people of color, to the gay community — because these things really do happen.”