SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
US Attorney Jeanine Pirro holds a press conference on August 12, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
DOJ Launches Probe After Serial Liar Trump Accuses DC of Faking Crime Stats
The move comes amid the president's military occupation of the nation's capital, despite an official drop in violent crime.
Aug 19, 2025
He didn't like the latest jobs numbers, so he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and tapped a notorious yes-man to replace her.
He doesn't like "woke" history, so he ordered federal agencies and institutions to whitewash official accounts of the nation's troubled past.
Now US President Donald Trump's Department of Justice is investigating whether police officials in Washington, DC manipulated crime data as the president, a proven prolific liar, tries to justify his federal takeover of a city where violent crime is officially at historic lows.
"DC gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing!" Trump wrote Tuesday on his Truth Social network. "Until four days ago, Washington, DC was the most unsafe 'city' in the United States, and perhaps the World. Now, in just a short period of time, it is perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour! People are flocking to DC again, and soon, the beautification will begin!"
According to Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report data from 2024, Trump's statement wildly diverges from reality, as 28 cities had higher violent crime rates than Washington, DC.
Now, the same US Attorney's office that just this April lauded the drop in crime in the capital is probing the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) amid pushback against Trump's federalization of the force and deployment of National Guard troops from five jurisdictions and other federal agents onto the streets of the city. The DOJ criminal probe will be led by the office of US Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
There have been multiple internal allegations that MPD manipulated crime data. In 2020, former MPD Sergeant Charlotte Djossou filed a lawsuit alleging that senior department officials routinely misclassified more serious crimes to artificially reduce their reported rate. The DC Police Union, led by Gregg Pemberton, has also accused MPD supervisors of ordering officers to downgrade violent crimes to lesser offenses.
Last month, MPD suspended Michael Pulliam, a senior officer who allegedly altered crime statistics in his district. However, Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, told The Washington Post Tuesday that MPD Chief Pamela Smith had investigated all seven of the city's police districts for possible crime data manipulation and found problems only in Pulliam's jurisdiction.
"We are not experiencing a spike in crime," Bowser insisted in a recent interview with MSNBC. "In fact, we're watching our crime numbers go down."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
crimedonald trumpmetropolitan police departmentmuriel bowseru.s. department of justicewashington dctrump administration
He didn't like the latest jobs numbers, so he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and tapped a notorious yes-man to replace her.
He doesn't like "woke" history, so he ordered federal agencies and institutions to whitewash official accounts of the nation's troubled past.
Now US President Donald Trump's Department of Justice is investigating whether police officials in Washington, DC manipulated crime data as the president, a proven prolific liar, tries to justify his federal takeover of a city where violent crime is officially at historic lows.
"DC gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing!" Trump wrote Tuesday on his Truth Social network. "Until four days ago, Washington, DC was the most unsafe 'city' in the United States, and perhaps the World. Now, in just a short period of time, it is perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour! People are flocking to DC again, and soon, the beautification will begin!"
According to Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report data from 2024, Trump's statement wildly diverges from reality, as 28 cities had higher violent crime rates than Washington, DC.
Now, the same US Attorney's office that just this April lauded the drop in crime in the capital is probing the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) amid pushback against Trump's federalization of the force and deployment of National Guard troops from five jurisdictions and other federal agents onto the streets of the city. The DOJ criminal probe will be led by the office of US Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
There have been multiple internal allegations that MPD manipulated crime data. In 2020, former MPD Sergeant Charlotte Djossou filed a lawsuit alleging that senior department officials routinely misclassified more serious crimes to artificially reduce their reported rate. The DC Police Union, led by Gregg Pemberton, has also accused MPD supervisors of ordering officers to downgrade violent crimes to lesser offenses.
Last month, MPD suspended Michael Pulliam, a senior officer who allegedly altered crime statistics in his district. However, Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, told The Washington Post Tuesday that MPD Chief Pamela Smith had investigated all seven of the city's police districts for possible crime data manipulation and found problems only in Pulliam's jurisdiction.
"We are not experiencing a spike in crime," Bowser insisted in a recent interview with MSNBC. "In fact, we're watching our crime numbers go down."
He didn't like the latest jobs numbers, so he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and tapped a notorious yes-man to replace her.
He doesn't like "woke" history, so he ordered federal agencies and institutions to whitewash official accounts of the nation's troubled past.
Now US President Donald Trump's Department of Justice is investigating whether police officials in Washington, DC manipulated crime data as the president, a proven prolific liar, tries to justify his federal takeover of a city where violent crime is officially at historic lows.
"DC gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing!" Trump wrote Tuesday on his Truth Social network. "Until four days ago, Washington, DC was the most unsafe 'city' in the United States, and perhaps the World. Now, in just a short period of time, it is perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour! People are flocking to DC again, and soon, the beautification will begin!"
According to Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report data from 2024, Trump's statement wildly diverges from reality, as 28 cities had higher violent crime rates than Washington, DC.
Now, the same US Attorney's office that just this April lauded the drop in crime in the capital is probing the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) amid pushback against Trump's federalization of the force and deployment of National Guard troops from five jurisdictions and other federal agents onto the streets of the city. The DOJ criminal probe will be led by the office of US Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
There have been multiple internal allegations that MPD manipulated crime data. In 2020, former MPD Sergeant Charlotte Djossou filed a lawsuit alleging that senior department officials routinely misclassified more serious crimes to artificially reduce their reported rate. The DC Police Union, led by Gregg Pemberton, has also accused MPD supervisors of ordering officers to downgrade violent crimes to lesser offenses.
Last month, MPD suspended Michael Pulliam, a senior officer who allegedly altered crime statistics in his district. However, Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, told The Washington Post Tuesday that MPD Chief Pamela Smith had investigated all seven of the city's police districts for possible crime data manipulation and found problems only in Pulliam's jurisdiction.
"We are not experiencing a spike in crime," Bowser insisted in a recent interview with MSNBC. "In fact, we're watching our crime numbers go down."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.