And intriguingly, the two Cook County prosecutors who took the lead in handling the Smollett case gave sharply contradictory answers about how the case was resolved.
After the outcry over the initial case’s dismissal, the state’s attorney’s office repeatedly gave statements saying that Smollett’s case was resolved in a way similar to thousands of other cases.
Foxx was aware that a top prosecutor, Alan Spellberg, had informed her the recusal was legally improper, according to the report — but she helped draft statements to the press that said the exact opposite.
Toomin made the decision after a brief hearing Monday morning, at which Webb urged Toomin to release the report so public trust in the court system could be restored.
While the full report has remained under wraps, Webb’s team wrote a summary of their conclusions that was released in August 2020.
You had my factual report released a year ago, I concluded there was significant improper conduct that occurred in the State’s Attorney’s office ..
The much briefer summary released in August 2020 concluded that Webb’s team did not find evidence of criminal conduct, but prosecutors including State’s Attorney Kim Foxx acted unethically by repeatedly making false or misleading public statements about the Smollett matter, according to the news release.
Toomin has already twice denied Webb permission to release the full details of his investigation since the report contains information gathered as part of grand jury proceedings, which by law are kept secret.
And when Toomin ruled last year that the report should be kept under wraps, he said nothing about doing so to protect Smollett’s trial rights.