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Behind the Scenes, It’s Clear Chicago Media and Police Doubt Jussie Smollett’s Story

I can’t recall a large crime story where there was a bigger gap between what the police and media are saying publicly, and what they expressing behind the scenes, than the saga involving the recent alleged hate crime against actor Jussie Smollett. Similarly, there may not be a story where you can tell more by what has not happened, in comparison to what actually has occurred.

The current public stance of the Chicago police is that earlier this month, at 2 a.m. on a very cold Chicago night, Smollett was the victim of what appears to be a heinous hate crime where he was physically attacked by two men, and humiliated due to his race, homosexuality, and possibly his opposition to President Donald Trump. The Chicago media, in official reports, has largely treated that narrative as legitimate, while chronicling the complete lack of suspects and corroborating evidence as more of a frustration than any indication that something else might be going on here.

Behind the scenes, however, based on conversations I have had with multiple people covering the story, there is a radically different take on what really did happen to Smollett. In short, there is near unanimity among police sources that Smollett’s story is very likely not true. And that even the media outlets still regurgitating the current “party line” don’t really believe it.

In my experience, most people are very bad at reading the tea leaves in these types of situations, and it often leads to very inaccurate interpretations of what is really going on. This case has several important elements which, if you know what to look for, make evaluating the actions of the police and news media really rather easy.

The first thing you need to understand about this situation is that, because of Smollett’s persona and the nature of his allegation, no one in law enforcement or the news media wants any part of publicly questioning his story. Everyone knows that if they make any sort of negative implication against a black, gay, liberal, celebrity, victim of a horrible hate crime, that they will be roundly and severely attacked, regardless of whether they turn out to be correct.

As a conservative, I look at this as his Political Correctness Force Field. Smollett’s protection here is literally about as strong as it gets, especially in Chicago, a city that has a large black population and is extremely liberal.

So, in this hyper-sensitive media environment, any sort of deviation from the accepted storyline by the police or the news media, much like if your seven-year-old kid is showing subtle signs they no longer believe in Santa Claus, must be given exponentially greater significance than it normally would. Here, both the police and news media in Chicago have provided plenty of those types of veiled indications, both publicly and privately.

Among other things, the police have made it very clear they have not yet found any proof of an attack, despite having almost all of Smollett’s movements on surveillance video. They have disclosed that Smollett would not give over his cell phone to verify his timeline of events. They even published photos of “persons of interest” that they had to know were going to be universally mocked for being obviously irrelevant.

In my view, none of those important revelations would have been made public in the way that they were, unless there was extreme suspicion within the police force that Smollett’s story was not fully accurate.

By extension, media figures would not be being told by their police sources, as I have been told is currently happening both routinely and with vigor, that the authorities are acting on the assumption that they will never find any evidence to fully substantiate Smollett’s story. This isn’t just happening via idle speculation either, the police are doing so with great specificity, even including an alternative theory for what really happened (current attempts to find the origin of the rope found around Smollett’s neck long after the event was over are believed to be the most likely game-changer, if there ever is one in this case).

As for the Chicago media, a couple of local television reporters are apparently using Twitter as a confessional for information about the case that their stations currently fear to air. Rob Elgas of the Chicago ABC affiliate, and Rafer Weigel of the Fox station (which carries Smollett’s show Empire) have continually updated the developments, or lack thereof, in a way that paints a much different picture from the one that viewers would see on an actual newscast.

It is very obvious that if one major news outlet in Chicago had the guts to be the first to openly discredit Smollett’s story, the others would soon follow the leader. But because the risk of being wrong in this situation (see Smollett’s PC Force Field), there is just no incentive to take that dive until and unless the police finally make a definitive statement.

I have written previously about my skepticism about the case, and speculated that this story would quickly disappear because there is no way it would get conclusively solved, and no one in authority will have any appetite for the perils of debunking a story from someone like Smollett. However, Weigel tweeted out some rather candid thoughts yesterday which gave me slight hope that maybe we will actually get to the truth of this matter (though, if that truth is indeed as those closest to the story suspect that it is, the news cycle created by that shocking disclosure will probably be exceedingly short).

December 11, 2018 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A group of archeologists and other scientists say they have discovered strong evidence that the region of the “Middle Ghor,” where the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are believed to have existed, were in fact destroyed by a meteor that exploded in the sky above, raining down superheated matter and raising temperatures to thousands of degrees, a theory that matches the account of the cities’ destruction contained in the Old Testament Book of Genesis.

According to the theory, the meteor exploded at low altitude with the force of a ten megaton atomic bomb at an altitude of about one kilometer over the northeast corner of the Dead Sea, and obliterated all of civilization in the 25-kilometer-wide circular plain that constitutes the “Middle Ghor.”

The researchers presented preliminary findings on the subject at this year’s annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research in November, and have been developing the theory since at least 2015. They state that the evidence from radiocarbon dating indicates that a group of civilizations flourished in the area for over two millennia, until approximately 1700 BC, when the mud-brick walls of the buildings in the region simultaneously disappeared and only the stone foundations remained.

At the same time, the pottery in the settlements was heated into glass in the space of milliseconds, according to the results of an analysis of the Zircon crystals formed in the process, indicating that they were briefly exposed to temperatures of approximately 4000 to 12000 degrees Celsius, comparable to the temperature of the surface of the sun.

The explosion rained down platinum as well as molten lava on the region, according to two of the archeologists, and this further confirms that a meteor was the source, given that platinum is found in higher concentrations in meteors than on earth.

Approximately 40,000 to 60,000 people living in the region were killed, and a 500-square kilometer area was rendered uninhabitable for 600 to 700 years, the researchers estimate. They believe that the area was stripped of its topsoil, and that salts from the nearby Dead Sea were spread over the land, destroying its fertility.

The settlements that were annihilated in the event include the principal excavation site, “Tall el-Hammam,” which the archeologists believe is the city of Sodom, whose destruction is recounted in the Book of Genesis, chapter 19. The approximate date of the annihilation also matches the time period corresponding to the event in Genesis, according to archeologists.

The research has been carried out by the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project (TeHEP) by a team of scientists from various universities and scientific institutes, including New Mexico Tech, Northern Arizona University, North Carolina State University, Elizabeth City (NC) State University, DePaul University, Trinity Southwest University, and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Close correlation with the Book of Genesis, chapter 19

Two archeologists involved in the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project, Steven Collins and Phillip Silvia, wrote in a 2015 conference paper that “the physical evidence from Tall el-Hammam and neighboring sites exhibit signs of a highly destructive concussive and thermal event that one might expect from what is described in Genesis 19.”

“The soil/ash samples gathered from Tall el-Hammam contain evidence of top-soil destruction and sub-soil contamination with Dead Sea salts that would have prevented the cultivation of crops for many centuries following the event, which explains (in part, at least) the long occupational hiatus,” they add.

According to the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis, verse 24, “The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven,” a statement that matches well the high temperatures and superheated stones that would have rained from the sky in such an event.

The Hebrew word for “brimstone” is normally applied to sulfur, which is a stone that burns.

Genesis 19 also seems to describe the general devastation in the region, including the loss of plant life discovered by the archeologists, stating in verse 25, “And he destroyed these cities, and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth.”

“The country about” is the Hebrew word “hakkikkar,” which refers to a plain seated between mountains, or a valley. Archeologists believe this area to be the Middle Ghor.

Genesis adds that Abraham “looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and the whole land of that country: and he saw the ashes rise up from the earth as the smoke of a furnace.”

Genesis and other books of the Bible state that Sodom was destroyed in retribution for the sexual perversion of the inhabitants, particularly their desire for sexual relations with the same sex, which the Scripture calls an “abomination.”

The New Testament Letter of Jude likens fires that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah to the “eternal fire” of hell.

“Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighboring cities...having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire,” the letter states in chapter one.