I just perused leftist media on this matter. It is curiously bland, not at all the outburst of indignation I expected, so the left does know this was a farce. But they are not blaming themselves by any means. This bit from the NYTimes shows that they are still trying to qualify this event, so that the left takes no blame

With its finding, after more than nine hours of deliberation, the 12-person jury indicated it had chosen to believe the accounts of two brothers who testified that Mr. Smollett had asked them to mildly injure him as part of a publicity stunt.