Bobby Shmurda's Lawyer Says Client Being Targeted Because 'The Government Hates Rap'

Like a good lawyer, Bobby Shmurda's is coming out swinging for his client.

Shmurda is facing five criminal charges -- including conspiracy and drugs and weapons possession -- after he was arrested along with 14 other members of his GS9 crew earlier this week. The charges are the result of what is being described as a long term investigation into GS9's participation in the drug trade and multiple shootings, including murders. If convicted, the 'Hot Nigga' rapper could get up to 25 years in prison.

Attorney Howard Greenberg told XXLMag that he not only believes Shmurda is innocent, but that he's a victim of a government conspiracy against rappers.

“Let me give you some context,” Greenberg said to XXLMag. “The government hates rap and the government hates rappers. They target these guys and construct a narrative around them and then they rationalize the narrative in order to get an indictment. I had said previously, it’s a bunch of bullshit. What they do is they recruit guiltless, loveless people who are truthless that are jealous of brothers on the way up and they get them to implicate them.” “I gave the indictment a close read and the first 41 pages [are] just talk,” he said “It’s street lingo that isn't even English, which is susceptible to interpretation that’s so broad, it’s unduly vague. In the argument yesterday they said that there were guns in his car; what they didn't say is that two guns were in a closed container in the possession of somebody else, not Bobby. They misspoke about that to the Supreme Court. In the defense bar we style conspiracy charges as one of the darlings of the prosecutor’s nursery. People of color should be very afraid of these kind of prosecutions. They are selective. They start by aiming at a guy’s lyrics to begin.”