Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.) said Tuesday evening that she is “completely confused” and “at a loss” after prosecutors dropped charges earlier in the day against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett.
“I’m completely confused. I don’t understand. I don’t know. I don’t know the underlying evidence. There’s a sealed document, obviously. I don’t know. I’m at a loss,” Harris said during an interview on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”
Prosecutors in Cook County, Ill., announced earlier Tuesday that the charges against Smollett had been dropped.
Smollett, 36, had previously been indicted by a grand jury on 16 felony counts after prosecutors accused him of filing a false report when he said he was the victim of a hate crime.{mosads}
“After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollet’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case,” the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said in a statement Tuesday.
During her interview on CNN, Harris added that she thinks “we’re going to have to leave it up to the judgment of the prosecutor.”
“I think we should leave it up to the judgment of the police chief and the mayor, of course, to give us some better sense of what’s going on. I don’t know,” she added.
Harris drew headlines in January after condemning what she called “an attempted modern day lynching” after Smollett claimed that two men attacked him, put a noose around his neck and poured a chemical substance on him while yelling racial and homophobic slurs at him.
She later said that she was “sad, frustrated, and disappointed” after police in Chicago accused Smollett of staging the alleged attack.
“When anyone makes false claims to police, it not only diverts resources away from serious investigations but it makes it more difficult for other victims of crime to come forward,” she said in a statement at the time.
“At the same time, we must speak the truth: hate crimes are on the rise in America,” she added.