Breaking: fbi has been investigating Smollett letter for a month. Grand jury, subpoenas

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Two Lakeview brothers who were previously considered “persons of interest” in Smollett’s purported attack told police during interrogations last week that Smollett staged the hate crime because he was upset that the threat letter did not get enough attention, ABC7 Chicago reported Monday afternoon. Detectives are investigating their claim.

Meanwhile, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has been quietly working on the origins of Smollett’s letter for nearly a month. Giving it far more “attention” than he knew.

Late Monday, CWBChicago received confirmation that the letter case has been before a federal grand jury and multiple subpoenas had been generated over the course of the investigation.

In a conversation on Feb. 8th, before police met with brothers Ola and Abel Osundairo, a leading source within the Smollett attack investigation called the hate crime a "false flag" and said “There is a direct line between (the letter) and (the purported attack)." In the same conversation, the source hinted at what was to come: "This is not a whodunit. It's a how-many-people-dunit."

Federal charges against whoever mailed the letter were, they said, “certain." Whoever sent the letter, we were told, "made an enormous mistake."


Whoever sent the letter to Smollett may have considered the mail to be an untraceable way to deliver a message. They’d be mistaken.

“Those postal guys are the real deal,” said a North Side cop who worked with inspectors on a serial package theft case in Lincoln Park last November. “They can do amazing things and aren’t afraid of the work.”

Since being created by Benjamin Franklin—yes, that Benjamin Franklin—the service has learned a few things about tracing mail-based crimes. Figuring out who mailed a letter has been made easier because, while most criminals know to wear gloves when they mail an illegal item, most criminals also forget to leave their cellphones at home.

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