Real journalists would have done the same thing. They’re supposed to dispassionately seek the truth, not promote political narratives that fly in its face. Yet, for days after Phillips blatantly changed a crucial part of his story, the media went right on uncritically portraying him as a stoic hero who faced down Trump-supporting, privileged, white racists.
Not only did Nathan Phillips lie repeatedly about what happened, he refused to call off his cynical attack on the boys even when confronted with his lies. When Nicholas Sandmann put out his statement on the incident—a statement his Catholic diocese finally concluded was “consistent with videos,” prompting their apology to Sandmann and his fellow students for their initial reaction18—Phillips had the temerity to double down and call for the students’ expulsion from school. “For the students, I was against any expulsions, but now I have to revisit that,” he said.19
Four days after the incident, when anyone interested could have seen extensive video that clearly shows the students’ story is true and Phillips’ story is false, the producers of NBC’s Today just couldn’t bring themselves to let go of the false narrative. Even while showing clips of the Black Hebrew Israelites hurling hateful invective at the boys and Nathan Phillips clearly going out of his way to approach the boys, contrary to his initial story, Today’s Savannah Guthrie still questioned Sandmann as if he were the defendant in a criminal trial.
“Do you feel, from this experience, that you owe anybody an apology? Do you see your own fault in any way?” she asked.20 When Sandmann said he didn’t, Guthrie went on to question him on whether he thought it was a bad idea for the boys to “chant back,” which is a misleading characterization of their response. She asked Sandmann if he heard any of his fellow schoolmates yell, “Build the wall,” even though her own voice-over reporting said NBC had reviewed all available video and could not find any evidence anyone yelled that “hot button phrase.”
One might be inclined to defend Guthrie as simply doing hard-nosed reporting, even given she was questioning a sixteen-year-old kid like he was on the stand for murder. But that goes out the window when one watches her subsequent interview with Phillips the next day. Gone is the ominous lighting and the grave tone of voice. Guthrie opens the interview with a smile on her face, as if greeting a friend who just got out of the hospital:
First of all, first question, how are you doing? This has been a whirlwind few days for you. You find yourself on the front page of every newspaper. How are you doing and how are you feeling?21
Guthrie went on to ask Phillips how he felt about Sandmann’s statement, whether he thought Sandmann should apologize, and allowed him to clarify his military service record. At no time did she challenge either of Phillips’s two self-contradictory accounts of what happened. Never did she intimate that Sandmann’s account of the incident matched the videos, while neither Phillips’s first story nor his second did so.
What happened to the hard-nosed reporter?
Even assuming the worst of the liberal media, it’s hard to come up with an explanation for how this story has been treated. It would seem against their own interests, no matter how much they might hate President Trump and his supporters, to go on clinging to a narrative that is so flatly contradicted by extensive video evidence. Let’s not forget that it is swing voters, those not deeply committed to either side, who decide elections. Aren’t they worried they will turn off potential anti-Trump voters by so persuasively confirming the president’s claims that the news is fake?
It may be that they just can’t help themselves. The Left is so deeply rooted in identity politics that even incontrovertible evidence they see with their own eyes has no effect. Unable to even think about Sandmann, Phillips, or the Black Hebrew Israelites as individuals, but only as members of privileged or victimized groups, respectively, they can’t bring themselves to even consider that Phillips might be a liar, the Black Hebrew Israelites might be racists, or Sandmann might be completely blameless in this affair. Those results just won’t compute for them, no matter how many hours of video they watch, no matter how much evidence is presented.
Sandmann has filed lawsuits against CNN, the Washington Post, and NBC/MSNBC. The lawsuit against CNN claims the network “aired four defamatory” broadcasts and nine online articles falsely accusing Sandmann, 16, and his classmates of “engaging in racist conduct.”22 That’s legalese for running fake news stories that may have permanently damaged the reputation of a sixteen-year-old kid. His suits against the other networks claim similar torts.
I do a lot of traveling, speaking before large groups on a variety of issues, talking about my books and making on-location appearances for my television show, Justice with Judge Jeanine. No matter where I go, there is always somebody accusing President Trump and even his supporters of racism. It is insulting to all of us.
The word racism has a definition. According to Merriam-Webster, it is “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.”23 You may also hear talking heads say it is “judging people solely by their immutable characteristics,” which means basically the same thing.
Newsflash: the way the mainstream media and political Left reacted to the Lincoln Memorial incident was racist in the true sense of the word. They assumed the boys were guilty and the Black Hebrew Israelites and Nathan Phillips were innocent based solely on their respective races, and many continued to do so even when presented with incontrovertible video evidence that they had the story wrong.
Compare their behavior to any of the statements President Trump has made, going all the way back to his famous announcement in 2015, after riding down the escalator in Trump Tower. What did he say? “They’re not sending their best.”24 That statement explicitly acknowledges that not all people from Latin America in general or Mexico in particular are the same. In fact, he wasn’t even talking about all Mexicans or even all Mexican immigrants. He was talking about the subset of Mexican immigrants who choose to enter the country illegally. And even among that small subgroup, he said he assumed some were good people.
Calling those statements racist is akin to George Orwell’s famous “War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Strength,” statements written on the Ministry of Truth in 1984. It is not hyperbole to say that’s what the Left-wing media have become in this country, a Ministry of Truth, whose purpose is to distort and destroy the truth to further a political agenda.
The Fake “Lynching”
Well, at least after running wild with two straight fake news stories in the same week, the media showed some restraint in taking a story that fit their anti-Trump narrative too perfectly at face value, right? Certainly, even dishonest but self-interested Leftist news reporters would have enough sense to not put themselves in the same position of having to retract demonstrably inaccurate reporting for a third time in the same month, would they?
Never say never. Just eleven days after publicly botching the Covington High School story and less than two weeks after running with the fake Cohen story, the media and Left-wing allies did it again. Jussie Smollett made his now infamous call to the police and the media swallowed his story hook, line, and sinker. Not only did they again wrongly assume white Trump supporters had victimized a member of a minority group, they doubled down. They didn’t just call it an assault, or a possible hate crime, but a “lynching.”
A USA Today headline proclaimed, “Assault on ‘Empire’ Actor Jussie Smollett Serves as Reminder—Lynching, Noose Symbolism Still Prevalent.”25 Really? Prevalent? The story says that doing a web search on the word noose returned—gasp!—18 results. Now, of course if any of those were genuine incidents in which a noose was used to intimidate or threaten a black person—or anyone, for that matter—I condemn it with all my heart. In fact, as a prosecutor, hate crimes specifically infuriated me. As District Attorney, I not only prosecuted them with a vengeance, I fought for a hate crimes law in New York and was presen
t with the governor when he actually signed the law. I also testified before Congress on the ripple effect that hate crimes have throughout a community. As we now know, Smollett’s allegations turned out to be a hoax and, unfortunately, hate crime hoaxes have become a cottage industry in the Age of Trump. The Daily Caller compiled a list of almost two dozen of them since 2016.26
More important, this particular hoax should have sent up red flags immediately to any competent journalist, regardless of his or her political beliefs. First, you have an attack that occurs in the wee hours of the morning when temperatures were well below zero. Even given that Smollett had reported receiving a threatening letter prior to the attack, is it plausible that his supposed attackers would be waiting outside his apartment in subzero weather just in case he decided to get a sandwich at 2 a.m.?
Not only were these supposed “rednecks” impervious to extreme cold, they had no sense of subtlety whatsoever. They were reported to have yelled “This is MAGA country” while assaulting Smollett. That was very convenient, as was his being on his cell phone to his manager just as the attack occurred, allowing his manager to hear the damning words identifying the assailants as the evil, racist, homophobic deplorables the Left considers all Trump supporters to be.
I don’t necessarily blame CNN for its initial reporting on the day after Smollett made his report. They were basically relaying what police were saying about the incident, including that it was being investigated as a possible hate crime. But even that first report contained some red flags. Even though the area around Smollett’s apartment had “a very high density of city and private surveillance cameras,” according to Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, and the police had, by the time CNN reported the story, “canvassed and reviewed hundreds of hours of video” and no evidence of Smollett’s assailants had been found.
They initially didn’t even find any evidence of Smollett himself, other than an image of him standing alone inside a Subway restaurant nearby. Later, they were able to find video of most of Smollett’s trip to and from the Subway, which cast even more doubt on his story. How likely is it that with a plethora of cameras in the neighborhood, which captured him going to and from the sub shop, that he would be attacked during the brief moments he was not recorded on surveillance cameras?
Apparently, this did not give anyone in the media pause. I would have been intensely questioning Smollett about those details even if I were intending to prosecute on his behalf. Why don’t security cameras show any evidence of the attack, Jussie? How do you explain your invisible attackers? These are the kinds of questions I’d expect from defense counsel for anyone accused of perpetrating this assault. They’re also the kinds of questions real journalists ask when they haven’t made up their minds about what happened before they start investigating.
Instead, the American public was treated to actress Ellen Page’s melodramatic diatribe on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, during which she blamed—surprise, surprise—President Trump, although she also “connected the dots” to Vice President Mike Pence, presumably because of his previous opposition to gay marriage.27 Page failed to assign any responsibility to Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, both of whom opposed gay marriage just two elections ago in 2008.28
Meanwhile, back here in that rapidly vanishing space we call “reality,” some of us had our doubts about the whole thing right from the start. Just two days after the initial reports of the assault, I could already read between the lines of the police statements on the investigation. “We don’t have anything that we’ve actually been able to view.… He’s a victim right now, and we’ll treat him like a victim. He’s been very cooperative, and we have no reason, at this point, to think that he’s not being genuine with us,” said Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson.29
That’s a strange statement for a police superintendent to make. How did the idea Smollett wasn’t being genuine get introduced? My prosecutor’s instincts told me the police already had their doubts about Smollett’s story, as any competent law enforcement officer would, but were probably too afraid to articulate them about a gay black man. That they possibly went on investigating a crime they believed never happened is a concern in and of itself. What if they had mistakenly arrested an innocent person?
A day earlier, Smollett had refused to hand his cell phone over to police, who were interested in establishing the precise time of the assault. Since Smollett claimed he was on the phone with his manager at the time he was attacked and his manager supposedly heard the attackers yelling racial and homophobic slurs, in addition to saying, “This is MAGA country,” the contents of his phone constituted material evidence.
That would raise any law enforcement officer’s or prosecutor’s suspicions. Why would the victim of such a hateful crime want to withhold evidence that could help police find the perpetrators?
Smollett eventually gave the Chicago police “limited and redacted” phone records that were insufficient to verify he was talking to his manager at the time of the alleged attack.30 We now know why he was so reluctant to hand over the records. The entire attack was a hoax, supposedly perpetrated by Smollett to leverage a higher salary from Fox for his job on the television show Empire.31 But anyone who has watched the video of Smollett and Abel and Ola Osundairo, the two men he hired to help perpetrate the fake attack, can see at least part of the motivation was to smear Trump supporters.
While rehearsing the attack, Abel and Ola begin by rehearsing their lines without attempting to alter their Nigerian accents. Smollett scolds them, saying, “Guys, c’mon! The accent! More white, more racist, hillbilly.” The brothers then repeat their lines in surprisingly convincing southern drawls, yelling racist and homophobic epithets and being sure to get in, “This is MAGA country.”
At the time of this writing, the video of Smollet and the two brothers rehearsing the fake attack was widely available on independent YouTube channels, but no mainstream media outlet hosted it. That alone is a sad statement on the media. Hopefully, those interested in verifying my own reporting here on this incident won’t find the videos of Smollett’s rehearsal “disappeared” from the Internet, as so many conservative voices have been.
Of course, we all know the punch line to this very unamusing joke. After first charging Smollett with sixteen felony counts related to making a false report, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office eventually dropped all the charges against Smollett.32 This was such a miscarriage of justice that even Rahm Emanuel was upset about it. The city of Chicago’s law department has filed suit against Smollett demanding Smollett repay the city for the costs of investigating his phony crime.33
Interestingly, even State’s Attorney for Cook County Kim Foxx, who recused herself from the case before charges were filed against Smollett, admits that dropping the charges did not amount to an exoneration of Smollett. “He has not been exonerated; he has not been found innocent,” wrote Foxx in an op-ed attempting to justify her office’s bizarre decision.34 Foxx goes on to argue her office dropped the charges by measuring the seriousness of the crime against the likelihood of a conviction. Since when is a crime not serious when there is $130,000 of taxpayer dollars in overtime? It could have been worked on. How can you possibly say there is no likelihood of conviction when all evidence points to the suspect’s guilt?
This trend of prosecutors deciding they won’t charge someone with a crime but publicly commenting on the wrongdoing committed by the target is its own category of fake news. There is no “we will not indict, but…” You either have the evidence to charge someone or you don’t. If you don’t, you keep your mouth shut. The target is then put in the impossible position of fending off the public accusations of a prosecutor without the opportunity to present his case. This limbo was never anticipated by the framers of the Constitution.
I would like to point out the irony here in terms of how a liberal state’s attorney’s office in ultra-liberal Chicago treats an ultra-liberal celebrity suspect, whom we must legally presu
me innocent until proven guilty, but against whom there is ubiquitous video evidence of his obvious guilt all over the Internet, compared to how the president of the United States is being treated. Both men were investigated. In Smollett’s case, the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming. Indictments on sixteen felonies were sought and obtained. Yet, he walks free and the national media is virtually silent, after having taken a tremendous interest in Smollett’s case before they knew it was a hoax. In one of the few articles outside Chicago reporting on the charges being dropped, the New York Times ran an uncritical piece titled, “Jussie Smollett Charges Were Dropped Because Conviction Was Uncertain, Prosecutor Says.”35
To be fair, this was a rather dry piece of news reporting, devoid of opinion one way or the other. That may be a first for the Failing Gray Lady since Trump was elected. Outside of this, there is nothing but crickets as far as commentary on Smollett’s case. No outrage over video evidence of Smollett rehearsing his fake attack or over Smollett continuing to maintain his innocence!
There is still a chance justice will prevail in this case. Just before this book went to print, the Times again reported without fanfare that Judge Michael P. Toomin of the Circuit Court of Cook County ordered a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate the decision to drop the charges against Smollett, writing that it was something Foxx’s office should have done before making that decision. The judge said Foxx created a “fictitious office” with “no legal existence” when she recused herself from the case and appointed her deputy, Joseph Magats, as “acting state’s attorney.”36
Contrast that with the reaction to the Mueller report, which found no evidence of the crime the special counsel was created to investigate. After the report was made public and the two-year long Russiagate collusion delusion was exposed, the New York Times ran an article titled, “The Danger in Not Impeaching Trump”37 while The Atlantic mused in print, “To impeach or not to impeach?”38 Impeach for what?
Radicals, Resistance, and Revenge: The Left’s Plot to Remake America Page 16