White House press secretary Jen Psaki made excuses for Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden’s previous comments about Jussie Smollett on Friday, adding that everyone had “learned a lesson.”
Reporters pressed Psaki on what could be learned from Smollett’s guilty verdict on Thursday given that both Biden and Harris had condemned the hoax attack at the time. Psaki deflected by saying that former President Donald Trump had also condemned the incident at the time, but acknowledged that everyone had a lesson to learn, before moving on to condemn Smollett.
“Both the president and vice president tweeted at the time of the attack,” a reporter called out. “The president tweeted ‘What happened to Jussie Smollett must never be tolerated in this country. We’re with you Jussie.’ The vice president called it an ‘attempted modern-day lynching.’ Following the guilty verdict, are there any lessons learned here on rushing to judgment when a crime is alleged?”
“There are lessons learned perhaps for everybody who commented at the time, including former President Trump … where he said ‘I can tell you that it’s horrible. It doesn’t get worse,’ in response to the question about Jussie Smollett at the time,” Psaki said. “I would say that we respect the jury’s decision. Lying to the police, particularly about something as heinous as a hate crime is shameful. Instances of that need to be investigated fully, and those found guilty need to be punished.”
“False accusations divert valuable police resources away from important investigations, they make it harder for real victims to come forward and be believed,” she added.
An Illinois court found Smollett guilty on five counts of filing a false police report and lying to police officers on Thursday.
Smollett had claimed in 2018 that he had been attacked at 2 a.m. in Chicago. He claimed to police that two men had beaten him, yelled racial slurs, poured bleach on him and tied a noose around his neck, then left him in the street. In truth, he had in fact orchestrated the attack with the two men as a hoax.
