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If every ounce of extraordinary evidence explained by the Chicago Police Department is true, former actor and likely future felon Jussie Smollett deserves to be prosecuted without mercy and to the fullest extent of the law. But if the latest announcement from the “Empire” producers are any indication, Hollywood will continue to handle the hate crime hoaxer with kid gloves. If they do, make no mistake, they will have blood on their hands.

“While these allegations are very disturbing, we are placing our trust in the legal system as the process plays out,” the producers of “Empire” said in a statement released by 20th Century Fox Television. “We are also aware of the effects of this process on the cast and crew members who work on our show and to avoid further disruption on set, we have decided to remove the role of ‘Jamal’ from the final two episodes of the season.”

In other words, the producers have left more than an ample amount of room to both take Smollett back in the future and absolve him of guilt by blaming writing him out of the show on “disruption,” not the fact that he likely committed a felony.

To recap: Smollett allegedly orchestrated a fake, racist and homophobic hate crime by paying two black, Nigerian brothers with checks to stage an assault at 2 a.m. in the middle of one of the worst polar vortex’s in recent Chicago history. The case against Smollett is watertight enough to go straight to a grand jury, and this is the level of skepticism that Hollywood is still espousing?

Smollett’s stupidity alone was criminal enough, but farcical lunacy aside, Smollett’s actions threatened more than whatever two suspects the cops could have erroneously rounded up and had the disgraced “Empire” actor testify against. Instead, Smollett threatened the safety and security of every black and gay man at risk of becoming the victim of a hate crime.

[Related: Chicago cops fume over Jussie Smollett dragging city ‘through the mud’]

Law enforcement looks willing to serve Smollett real justice and hard time, but Hollywood and its enablers haven’t been so adamant. They better buck up and get in line with the cops, and fast, or else they’ll make it abundantly clear that every ounce of publicity granted to Smollett wasn’t about anti-black or anti-gay discrimination, but simply exploiting the pain of marginalized groups to vilify Trump supporters.

In the aftermath of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings and the unraveling of the Julie Swetnick allegations, then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, referred her claims, including a sworn affidavit, to the Department of Justice and the FBI. It was the unequivocally ethical call, not merely to exonerate Kavanaugh, but to enhance the credibility of future rape and assault victims of the future. The attacks levied against legitimate victims of assault cases almost always center around a basic premise: anyone can lie and get away with it. If cases such as Swetnick’s and Smollett’s are investigated and condemned, not just by the law but also by society at large, then that premise is no longer true.

While false reports of hate crimes and assaults are rare, they happen, and in any case with exculpatory evidence, the purveyor of the hoax must be punished at every echelon of society.

“[It’s] the type of thing that happens way too often, especially in the Trump era,” wrote comedian Hari Kondabolu of the Smollett hoax in a tweet with 14,000 likes. “He may have taken advantage of a VERY REALISTIC FEAR.”

This sort of social justice exoneration of evil individuals to prove a greater point, in this case, the supposed malevolence of all Trump supporters, throws actual individuals and actual victims under the bus. If real crimes are perceived as justified retribution for the average offenses of greater social groups, are the people refusing to condemn them actually standing for victims, or just using their real pain to punish the unpalatable?