BREAKING: House Republicans Confront Democrats Over High Crime Rates in DC

In a fiery hearing on Thursday, members of the Washington, D.C., City Council went before the House Oversight Committee to answer questions on the crime crisis plaguing the nation’s capital. While Democrats blasted President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard as a “fascist” takeover, Republicans confronted Democrats about soft-on-crime policies that have led to several high-profile violent incidents in recent months.

In August, President Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in D.C. According to the D.C. Home Rule Act, the White House took effective control of the city’s police department for 30 days and deployed National Guard troops to help restore order to the city.

Despite loud protests from the left, the effort has been an overwhelming success – Republicans on the Oversight Committee reported “a 39 percent drop in violent crime, a 57 percent decrease in robberies, and a 75 percent decline in carjackings.” Even Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser, long a critic of President Trump, admitted back in August that the administration’s efforts had lowered crime in the city.

During the hearing, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan questioned D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson on manipulating the city’s crime statistics. As AMAC Newsline reported last month, a D.C. police commander was previously placed on administrative leave for allegedly falsifying the city’s crime rate to make it appear lower than it actually was.

The Free Beacon also obtained emails from the police department in which officers were repeatedly told “to downgrade theft cases, knife attacks, and violent assaults to lesser offenses, according to internal DCPD emails, depositions, and phone call transcripts.” The officer who spoke out against this scheme sued the city’s police department in 2020. She accused the leadership of punishing her for speaking out. The case was quietly settled out of court.

Jordan brought the issue to Mendelson’s attention and asked if he had been “cooking the books” with crime data. “I think we’re not [cooking the books], but I also know that there are a couple of investigations, one, by this committee,” Mendelson said in response. Jordan then pushed back.

“Sounds like you guys were cooking the books there… this is under oath from the deposition from this case that was just settled with the person who brought the action, a sergeant in your police department — but you’re not cooking the books?” he asked.

The hearing also had a tense moment between Florida Republican Byron Donalds and Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib. At one point, Tlaib accused Trump and his administration of enacting a “fascist takeover” of Washington, D.C. The comment came after Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson engraved similar rhetoric in a bullet casing that stated “Hey fascist! Catch!”

Donalds immediately slammed Tlaib over the comment. “She’s going to refer to me and some of my colleagues like we’re from the Third Reich? This is insane! It’s insane! Do I look like a member of the Third Reich to you, Ms. Tlaib? Is that what I look like to you?” Donalds asked.

Throughout the hearing, Democrats stuck to the narrative that Washington, D.C., does not have a crime problem. But Committee Chairman James Comer said Democrats who pushed this message were “either delusional or simply lying to the American people.” He then provided a recent high-profile murder as an example of violent crime in the city.

“Victims of violent crimes and their families might disagree with that assessment. Congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym was viciously murdered in June while he was simply walking down the street, an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire,” he said. “Two 17-year-olds were finally arrested just the other week for killing Eric, while a third suspect, an 18-year-old, is still at large.”

While official statistics show that violent crime has declined slightly in D.C. since the pandemic, the aforementioned investigation casts serious doubt on those figures. Moreover, D.C.’s crime rate still remains far above the national average, and it has a particularly troubling trend of juvenile crime.

Alan Jamison is the pen name of a political writer with extensive experience writing for several notable politicians and news outlets.