Fox Business News host Stuart Varney continued the channel’s outraged coverage of Jussie Smollett by taking it one step further: claiming the Empire actor’s cleared charges mean “the judicial system has been raped.”
On Varney & Co., Judge Andrew Napolitano explained the details of the case are sealed and that the charges are “dismissed forever.”
“They cannot be reconstituted; he cannot be re-indicted,” Napolitano said. “The only way he can ever be prosecuted—and I think he may have bought this prosecution, if you know what I mean, triggered it himself—is by the federal government, because there’s a potential federal crime here.”
The Empire actor alleged that during a January attack, two men in masks tried to tie a rope around his neck and pour a chemical substance on him as he walked home in Chicago. Smollett claimed the men called him racist and homophobic slurs and shouted: “This is MAGA country.” Last month, Smollett was charged with 16 counts of disorderly conduct after police concluded the actor staged the hate crime himself because he was “dissatisfied with his salary” on the Fox show.
Smollett’s charges were dropped Tuesday in exchange for carrying out community service and for agreeing to forfeit his $10,000 bond to the city of Chicago.
“It’s just appalling, Judge,” Varney said, back at Fox. “That is unheard of. Even though I’m not being punished I will do all the hours of community service for you. This is some sort of a hybrid of some sort of a deal.”
“I’m just appalled,” he added.