Jussie Smollett: Evidence and Evasion

His words reveal the truth

This is part two of my look at Jussie Smollett, breaking down an interview that he gave shortly after his staged “attack”.

Part one looked at his description of the attack. You can read that here.

You can see the interview here.

In this part, we look at how Smollett talks about his interactions with the police. Following his trial, we know the truth as to what happened, so we can look at his words to see his deception in action.

We’ll start with his description of when the police arrived.

So, when the police came, I kept the clothes on. I kept the rope.

Interviewer - So you had the rope on the entire time?

It wasn't like wrapped around, but yeah, it was around because I wanted them to see. I wanted them to see what this was.

I told them what happened, everything. I also asked them to turn their body cams off because they were trying to stay in the hallway, and I was like, please just come in like I don't want a big scene with my neighbours and with like the second round of police officers.

I went down to where it happened, and I walked them through exactly what happened. And I looked up, and I saw that there was a camera directly on the light post that is in the intersection. So, I'm like, there it is.

He takes ownership of what he is saying here by using the word “I” a lot. This is factual, but not very reassuring when we look at the other content.

Smollett introduces the idea of holding back information from the police. He is at pains to point out that he disclosed everything, saying “I told them what happened, everything” and “I walked them through exactly what happened”. He adds the words “everything” and “exactly” to convince us that he has been cooperative and truthful. But why does he feel the need to add those words? Why is it in his head that information may be held back?

We know it is because he wasn’t truthful with the police. He staged the attack. The interviewer hasn’t asked Smollett how cooperative he was with the police, she said, “what happened?” That he feels the need to add in that he didn’t hold anything back suggests that he did indeed hold things back.

Once more, his words feel like he is producing a list of evidence about the attack more than he is telling the story of a horrific encounter. He wants us and them to know he still has the rope in position, and he takes them to the place he was attacked.

The introduction of the camera is troublesome. “And I looked up”, why was he looking up? It’s too sudden. If he’d said “I was looking around to see if any cameras were nearby, and I looked up” it would be more believable.

His phrase on spotting the camera is telling. “So I’m like, there it is”. “There it is” is very specific, it’s wording you would use if you are searching for a specific item. “I was looking all over the kitchen for the cup and I look in the sink and there it is”.

If you spot something you’re not expecting to see, your wording is different, “I was in the kitchen when I saw a cup in the sink”.

We know that Smollett had arranged for the attack to take place in sight of that camera, so he would have video “evidence” that he was assaulted. So, when he said, “there it is” he was “leaking” the truth that he was going to point out something specific to police.

Finally, on this section, if you had just been the victim of a violent, racist and homophobic attack, would you care about a commotion disturbing the neighbours? He’s attempting to explain away why he wanted the body cams off, but he’s doing it badly.

Phone moans

Interviewer - (talking about handing over his phone records) When did you make that information available to the police?

We gave... we had to give the phone records um which they didn’t originally ask for my phone records they asked for my phone they wanted me to give my phone to the tech for 3 to 4 hours. I’m sorry but.... I’m not going to do that.

Interviewer - Why?

Because I have private pictures and videos and numbers, my partner’s number, my family’s number, my cast-mates' number, my friends' numbers, my private emails, my private songs, my private voice memos.

I don’t know how that’s going to be, to hand over my phone for…. and honestly by then inaccurate, false statements had already been put out there

It doesn’t take much to work out that Smollett was sensitive about giving his phone or phone records to the police. With good reason, as the phone contained messages that pertained to the setting up of the attack. What can we take from the words he uses?

He is asked “when” he made the information available to the police. He doesn’t say when, only that he has.

Not only that, but he then starts to distract from this subject, saying he wasn’t initially asked for his records but his phone. And that he wasn’t going to do that.

This shows the trouble with telling lies and why most people try their hardest to avoid lying. He has to make up new lies to cover the first lie, and his reasons for not wanting to hand over his phone don’t sound good.

Again, Smollett introduces the notion of holding something back, describing things as trivial as his partner’s phone number as private.

I’m interested in how he refers to the phone numbers too, he says:

Partner’s (singular) number (singular)

Family’s (multiple) number (singular)

Could be cast-mates’ (multiple) number (singular) or…

Could be cast-mate’s (singular) number (singular)

Friends’ (multiple) numbers (plural)

Why does he refer to the multiple phone numbers of his family as a singular number? Why does he possibly refer to the multiple phone numbers of his cast-mates as a singular number? It could be that one specific number of the many possibles in each case gives him cause not to want to hand the phone over.

We know that one “attacker” did appear in his TV show, so this could well be his issue with cast-mates. Were there similarly incriminating messages with a family member?

Smollett’s logic breaks down under the pressure of lying once more. He says he won’t give information to the police because there are already inaccurate stories being told. By giving truthful records to the police, the only thing that can flow from them is accurate stories. Why would he want to stop accurate stories? Because the accurate story is that he staged the attack.

Factual and consistent

I am working with authorities and have been 100% factual and consistent on every level. Despite my frustrations and deep concern with certain inaccuracies and misrepresentations that have been spread, I still believe that justice will be served.

Smollett is in convincing mode again. He isn’t simply working with the police, he’s been “100% factual and consistent”. A truthful person would not generally feel the need to tell us they’d been 100% factual. To them, there are only facts. Consistency wouldn’t come into their thoughts.

Once more, it is Smollett who introduces the idea that it’s possible that something could be held back and his account may be inconsistent.

Conclusion

I have three main takeaways from Smollett’s description of his interaction with the police

1. His lies are causing him pressure. He is at pains to point out how truthful he is and his lies to support the lies are not convincing.

2. He is super sensitive about the contents of his phone.

3. His words around the “discovery” of the camera show he knew it was there before the attack.

That’s what I see. What about you? Leave your observations in the comments below, I can’t wait to read them.