President Joe Biden’s top pick to lead the Department of Justice’s civil rights division peddled the Jussie Smollett hoax on Twitter, criticizing anyone who questioned the black, gay actor’s falsified hate crime in 2019.
“Jussie Smollett subjected to a racist and homophobic attack. 2 white men wearing ski masks attacked him, put a rope around his neck, and poured bleach on him and as they yelled slurs. Prayers to @JussieSmollett for a speedy recovery from this hate crime,” Kristen Clarke tweeted shortly after the alleged incident.
Days after her initial post, Clarke, who will oversee hate crime investigations if confirmed, took to Twitter again, alleging that the Chicago Police Department was “demonizing survivors” after they requested access to Smollet’s cellphone and claiming that they shouldn’t be “casting doubt” on the actor’s claims that his assailants shouted racial slurs and beat him up while yelling pro-Trump slogans.
“To be clear — This is a BAD move by the Chicago Police Department. This is NOT how you treat survivors of a hate crime. Stop demonizing survivors and casting doubt on their claims if you want communities to trust that you will take #HateCrime seriously. @StopHateProj,” she wrote.
Even after Smollett’s story about a racist, the homophobic attack began to unravel and investigations revealed that the actor paid people to fake an attack against him, Clarke shamed a black prosecutor for dismissing the Smollett case and refusing to pursue it even after she dropped his original charges.
“Prosecutors use their discretion every day. But when a duly elected Black prosecutor, Kim Foxx, uses her discretion to move on from the Jussie Smolett [sic] matter, it’s a different story. A special prosecutor is brought in to undermine her...
