Zorn: The long litany of Foxx falsehoods on Smollett

The vast understatement of Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx's admission that she "didn't handle (the Smollett case) well" in an October 2019 interview with Axios came clear in the 59-page report from the Office of the Special Prosecutor released to the public last week.

Special Prosecutor Dan Webb laid out in compelling detail how Foxx lied to the public repeatedly as this weird, sordid story unfolded, needlessly but seemingly reflexively betraying those who had put their trust in her.

And she apparently did so in the service of protecting the still inexplicable decision of two of her underlings - then-First Assistant Joseph Magats, and current First Assistant Risa Lanier - to drop all charges against TV actor Jussie Smollett without so much as an admission of wrongdoing. This was after a grand jury had indicted Smollett for staging a hate crime against himself in early 2019 and then lying to police about it.

Foxx reportedly told Webb during his investigation that she, too, was puzzled by the decision to drop the case. But rather than rebuke and replace Magats and Lanier, as she should have done in the moment, Foxx contrived to rehabilitate their blunder

She haughtily derided those outraged by the outcome as "people who don't understand the intricacies of the justice system."

To see the long list of Foxx misstatements (or presumed forgetfulness), check the full article on Eric's newsletter The Picayune Sentinel at https://ericzorn.substack.com.