Rev. Jesse Jackson on Friday released a statement branding the “outrage” surrounding Jussie Smollett as “fake news” and called on people still angered by allegations that the Empire actor staged a hate crime against himself to move on from the scandal.
“The outrage over the Jussie Smollett case is misplaced and out of proportion,” saidJackson. “It is being used from City Hall to the White House to deflect and distract from City Hall to the White House. It is fake news.”
“The voices that are crying out the loudest seem to have only recently found their sense of righteous indignation,” he continued.
Smollett performed a mere 16 hours of community service over two days at Jackson’s civil rights groups — the Rainbow PUSH Coalition — which the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office cited in its announcement that it was dropping all 16 charges against the actor for filing a false police report regarding the alleged stage assault.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times this week, Jackson dismissed criticism over his involvement in the Smollett case, stating “reach out to people who are in distress” has always been a part of his group’s mission. “PUSH has always been a house of refuge. It’s part of what we do, reaching out to people who are in distress, and we have done so in many high-profile cases over the years, from Sammy Davis Jr., when he hugged President Nixon and black folks turned against him, to Bobby Rush, after police tried to kill him in the Black Panthers raid,” he told the newspaper. – READ MORE