By now the contours of the story are familiar: Smollett claimed he was walking home from a Subway restaurant one night in January 2019 when two men wearing ski masks attacked him, yelling racial and homophobic slurs and hanging a noose around his neck. One of his attackers appeared to be white, Smollett said. And in the midst of the assault, one assailant yelled “This is MAGA country,” a reference to then-President Donald Trump’s slogan.