The Cook County State’s Attorney handling the case of Jussie Smollett’s allegedly false hate crime report said Friday that she won’t provide any updates on the matter until the state’s Inspector General releases its own report.
Prosecutor Kim Foxx released her statement in response to “recent editorials and commentaries urging [her] to comment further on the circumstances” surrounding her office suddenly dropping criminal charges against the “Empire” actor, who was suspected of hiring the two men to stage a violent attack on him in order to obtain a pay raise.
“I want the public to know that I am committed to assuring a transparent review of how this office functioned in the Smollett case,” she said. “I believe that the most reliable and effective way to accomplish that review is to enlist the assistance of the Cook County Office of the Independent Inspector General.”
That review, she continued, “should not be held against a backdrop of public comments or speculation from me or my office about what people did or said.”
Previously, another prosecutor in her office said he still believed Smollett was guilty of the 16 felony accounts he faced, but that his crimes didn’t fit the office’s mandate.
“Our priority is violent crimes and the drivers of violence,” First Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Joseph Magats told CBS News last month. “Jussie Smollett is neither one of those.”
Foxx’s Friday announcement comes the same day her office announced that two of its top officials were resigning, though her office said the resignations were not related to the Smollett case.