President Donald Trump has deployed FBI agents to purportedly fight deadly crime in Washington, D.C. but crime is at a 30-year low in the city. The FBI will be reassigning 120 agents to go on night patrols in Washington—a city of 68 square miles and just over 700,000 residents. Those agents will be pulled from their other duties to serve on Trump’s pet project.
Trump’s justification for the move is that crime in the city is supposedly out of control. In a MondayTruth Social post he wrote, “Washington, D.C. will be LIBERATED today! Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER!”
He also demanded that homeless people leave D.C.
Crime is down in D.C. As the FBI itself explained in a January statement, crime levels in the city are at 30-year lows—a drop that occurred under former President Joe Biden.
“Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years, according to data collected by the Metropolitan Police Department,” the agency said at the time.
In contrast to Trump’s rhetoric, since Trump sent in agents they are dealing with far more mundane affairs. NPR reported that on Sunday night, at least two dozen agents were on the scene responding to a minor traffic accident between a car and a moped. That is hardly something that needs more than a response from local police—D.C. has a police force of more than 3,000 officers.
Washington Post writer Drew Harwell noted the absurdity of Trump’s actions, posting a video in which armed federal agents walked through a tranquil D.C. as joggers ran past them.
In addition to the FBI assets, Trump said on Monday that he had declared an emergency in D.C. and would be sending in National Guard troops to make the capital into one of the “safest, cleanest and most beautiful cities anywhere in the world.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the National Guard would soon be patrolling the streets—a development that right-wing conspiracy theorists have accused Democrats of plotting to carry out for decades.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser questioned the effectiveness of such a move. “I just think that’s not the most efficient use of our Guard,” she said Sunday on MSNBC's “The Weekend,” acknowledging it is "the president’s call about how to deploy the Guard.”
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser
Trump and his allies at conservative media outlets like Fox News are hyping up a purported crime crisis in D.C.—where most of the population is Black—while his administration faces a host of failures and scandals.
The economy is faltering, rocked by Trump’s decision to impose massive tariffs on foreign imports. Recent unemployment reports show that Trump’s tariffs are causing an increase in joblessness, and he has responded by pushing nonsensical conspiracy theories about the government data being manipulated.
Simultaneously, his administration has been criticized by both the right and left for refusing to release the government’s information on Trump friend and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his sex trafficking network.
Under Attorney General Pam Bondi the FBI is patrolling the streets of Washington instead of disclosing Epstein’s purported client list and other affiliated documents. Trump has sued The Wall Street Journal for reporting that his name purportedly came up in an FBI sweep of Epstein-related files. Trump would rather the focus be on his supposed tough approach to crime than the economy or pedophile-related scandals.
But his presidency has shown a fondness for criminals. He pardoned hundreds of people involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and some of them have already returned to a life of crime. Simultaneously, his decision to use ICE to harass and kidnap migrants has given a green light to criminals around the country to impersonate ICE as a pretext to committing crimes.
And of course, Trump himself is a convicted felon on 34 counts, meaning that one of the most well-known criminals in Washington is the one purportedly declaring war on crime.
