A damning House Oversight Committee report has exposed a systemic and deliberate campaign to deceive the American public about surging crime in the nation’s capital, directly implicating D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith in a scheme to rig crime statistics. Committee Chairman James Comer, in a statement calling for Smith’s immediate resignation, declared, “Every single person who lives, works, or visits the District of Columbia deserves a safe city, yet it’s now clear the American people were deliberately kept in the dark about the true crime rates in our nation’s capital.” This manipulation was not a bureaucratic error but a calculated effort to create a false narrative of security while violent crime threatened citizens, a narrative eagerly parroted by a complicit liberal media to attack the strong public safety policies of President Donald Trump.
I don’t think anyone paying attention should be shocked but we are all disgusted!
The report, titled “Leadership Breakdown: How D.C.’s Police Chief Undermined Crime Data Accuracy,” details a toxic environment of fear and coercion. Chairman Comer’s statement summarized the findings, noting that “Chief Pamela Smith coerced staff to report artificially low crime data and cultivated a culture of fear to achieve her agenda.” Testimony from veteran police commanders reveals they faced “extreme” pressure to downgrade serious crimes. One commander explicitly described how they were ordered to reclassify an assault with a dangerous weapon—a major crime—to a lesser endangerment offense, a practice they called “new to this chief.” This deliberate falsification was a political operation from the top down, designed to mask the catastrophic failures of local Democratic leadership.
Commanders provided shocking examples of the data manipulation. One testified about reviewing reports that clearly described burglaries, where citizens returned home to find doors open and property stolen, only to see them officially logged as minor “unlawable entry and a theft.” As the commander explained, “That’s the elements of a burglary… But the proper charge would be burglary, but unlawful entry doesn’t hit the DCR status of burglary. So maybe my burglaries are down now even though I had a ton of unlawful entries.” This statistical sleight-of-hand created a Potemkin village of public safety, allowing Democrat officials and their media allies to falsely claim crime was under control while opposing President Trump’s decisive interventions.
The culture under Chief Smith was described as one of retaliation and humiliation. Commanders were forced into frequent “mandatory crime briefings” described by one as “really an atonement for our sins,” where they were berated for accurate crime reporting. This toxic leadership drove experienced officers away and destroyed morale, directly endangering public safety. All of this deception was strategically used by left-wing city leaders and their media accomplices as a “talking points against Trump’s actions to declare a ‘public safety emergency’ in the nation’s capital.” They cited the fraudulent low crime numbers to argue that the President’s deployment of federal resources and the National Guard was unnecessary, actively fighting against measures that would save lives.
In a powerful vindication of President Trump’s America First governance, the very police commanders testified that his federal surge was overwhelmingly effective. One commander stated of the federal partners, “I would be lying if I said it didn’t. It did. It really helped.” Another enthusiastically added, “I’m sleeping a lot more and I’m getting a little bit more downtime, which I encourage, if anybody has any more Federal partners to bring to us… I would be happy to take on any more resources that I possibly could get.”
This testimony proves that while Democratic officials and the liberal media were fabricating data and attacking the President, his policies were successfully protecting citizens and supporting rank-and-file officers. The report confirms that the only agenda being served by the manipulated data was a political one aimed at undermining the lawful, forceful actions of the Trump administration to restore safety and order.