I do think people who make false claims should receive some sort of punishment. You can't just go around claiming false rapes and false attacks and expect nothing to happen.
I think the overwhelming majority of people would agree with you here. Though there are obvious cases where money and power can get you off the hook, but this applies to every law. You can even get away with murder if you have enough money and your defense attorneys are good enough. I think the likelihood or some sort of deal being done that involved money or influence extended will be very high here.
Many people claim that Trump is a racist and there is actually good reason to suspect he is but they are just trying to divide the population to make them weaker.
I think that's what he was playing on trying to tie it to Trump in this way. It's going to backfire though if Trump doesn't let this go and does everything in his power to try get him back.
They apparently planned to stage the event in front of a CCTV camera, but it turns out it was facing the other way.
Wouldn't it be obvious in video footage they were black? Or were they covered head to toe?
Frankly I haven't seen a modicum of evidence proving Trump is racist, and any argument to the effect always seems to include a rather extreme interpretation, disgruntled fired employees, or "anonymous sources".
Also, he is pressing The Smolleting because it is what people want (just not the people who don't like him). Think about this for a moment. All they are doing is trying to find a way to not only create further division by staging this act, they are trying to wind up moonbats with Trump Derangement Syndrome to feel justified in attacking his supporters violently. Furthermore this violence has been largely in one direction and conservatives have been EXTREMELY restrained when dealing with violence so far, so it makes it that much harder to muddy the waters of who started it etc. This staged event also serves the purpose of creating false equivalency to make it appear as if both sides of this conflict are equally responsible for violence.
Regarding the CCTV footage who knows, I don't expect him to make any sense at this point. He has recently came out proclaiming his innocence once again, and saying that "the perpetrators" of this incident may have been wearing "white face". This whole event is so absurd on its face it would be rejected in any movie script as too unbelievable. I am hearing more and more discussion now as well that he may have been let go because of Obama's direct involvement as well.
Considering Chicago is his home base that is not entirely unbelievable. It was interesting hearing Rahm Emmanuel the mayor of Chicago recently try to blame Trump for this event after he called the dropped charges on Smollet "a whitewash of justice.". I think his overlords voiced their displeasure and he was forced to walk back his statements some. This town has had at least 4 unbroken generations of corruption to its core though, so in the end none of this is that surprising.