Smollett Hate Crime Hoax Has a ‘Toxic, Poisonous Effect’ on the Nation

Update: Jussie Smollett has surrendered to police and is now in Chicago police custody as of Thursday morning, Fox News reported.

Disgraced “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett’s shattered claims that white supporters of President Donald Trump’s attacked him in Chicago recently has had “a toxic, poisonous effect on our discourse” as part of the new “pseudo-intellectual grievance culture,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham said Wednesday night on “The Ingraham Angle.”

Smollett (pictured above), who is gay and African-American, claimed in January that alleged attackers made homophobic and racist remarks to him.

The actor alleged the men threw a noose around his neck and yelled, “This is MAGA country!”

These hate-crime allegations horrified many Americans. And although inconsistencies and discrepancies plagued Smollett’s version of events almost immediately, the mainstream media members and liberals who gobbled up the allegations rushed to tie them to Trump.

Now Smollett has been indicted on a felony charge for allegedly filing a false police report. Smollett has been accused of paying two men to help him carry out the hate crime hoax.

Ingraham warned that the Smollett controversy represents a key component of the new “victimhood obsession” that’s “infected” society at large.

“Even when [Smollett’s] wild allegations couldn’t be substantiated, even after it appears that Smollett himself organized the attack he initially blamed on MAGA hat-wearing racists, and even after he was charged with filing a false police report, in the eyes of these folks — none of it matters,” Ingraham said.

“He ultimately gets a pass in their eyes because the story fit the Left’s narrative,” Ingraham added. “And he is morally right in their eyes — even if kind of confused and sad regarding these current set of facts. And regardless of facts anyway, Trump and his followers are, according to them, violent racists.”

Related: Kamala Harris Stutters on Jussie Smollett News: ‘Which Tweet? What Tweet?”

Chicago native Tio Hardiman, executive director of Violence Interrupters, told Ingraham the type of crime Smollett described just “doesn’t happen in Chicago.”

“I’ve been in Chicago all my life, and like I said, I’ve never, ever heard of an attack like this,” Hardiman said. “And Jussie should stop playing games with the people if he’s wrong because he owes everybody in Chicago an apology due to the fact that we have people that are shot every day in Chicago — people that are killed at least every other day in Chicago.”

Hardiman pointed to a one-year-old baby who was “shot in the head” in Chicago recently.

“So if Jussie, you know, stays [on] the attack, he’s dead wrong because he’s receiving all the attention,” Hardiman said. “Where’s the news about people being killed? He’s taking resources from much-needed communities where violence is running rampant out here.”

Indeed, Chicago placed 24 police detectives on the Smollett case. Former Los Angeles Police Department Detective Mark Fuhrman told Ingraham that “I have never seen 24 detectives on anything short of a serial killer case.”

“And taking 24 detectives off their case load, taking them away from cases that are actually happening while they’re doing this Smollett case, is just absurd,” Fuhrman said.

Related: Jussie Smollett Facing Criminal Charges for Allegedly Faking a Hate Crime

The Smollett allegations “smelled from the beginning,” Fuhrman said — and it never looked “like a street crime.”

“When you’re removed — when you’re a celebrity or a politician and you’re removed from anything that happens in the real world — then you’re going to buy into it because it fits your agenda, and you’re willing to jump in with both feet because it’s what you want to hear,” Fuhrman noted. “You want to champion somebody for your cause.”

If the “Empire” actor is guilty of the charges, then shame on him for “taking much-needed attention from a serious problem in Chicago,” Hardiman said.

“But I am worried about the people … who don’t get the benefit of the news coverage and the focus that he managed to galvanize because his political narrative fit what the leftwing media and the celebrity culture demanded,” Ingraham said.

“They’ve got to throw the book at people who do this because it has a toxic, poisonous effect on our discourse. And it’s an attempt to tar this country in a very ominous, terrible light,” Ingraham added. “It is infuriating on so many levels. There are so many hate crimes out there, and this was obviously a fraud.”

Fuhrman accused the actor of thinking that “he is more important than the people of Chicago, the people of the United States, the president, every detective that’s working the case, every person that’s on the police department that’s had to take their time and energy to solve a crime that the victim actually created himself.”

“It’s disgusting,” Fuhrman added.

“I am worried about the people … who don’t get the benefit of the news coverage and the focus that he managed to galvanize because his political narrative fit what the leftwing media and the celebrity culture demanded.”

Ingraham also tied the Smollett controversy to the disturbing rise of socialism in this country. She said it could be connected to a new culture of victimhood and grievance as college students become increasingly willing to champion socialism.

“Because the key to understanding this fanatical fad is that when you’re a socialist, facts are kind of irrelevant. Now why? Well, they’re irrelevant because the ends — a supposedly more equal society — justify the means,” Ingraham said.

“When a liberal claims moral superiority, all the rules change,” Ingraham added. “Playing by the university rule book, well, dissent is not allowed and liberal victims — fake or otherwise — are entitled to mercy.”

Check out more in the video below:

This article has been updated.