U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Monday that a months-long federal investigation uncovered widespread misclassification of crime reports by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), making crime statistics across Washington, D.C. “artificially lower.”

Pirro said the findings were based on a review of nearly 6,000 reports and interviews with more than 50 witnesses, showing that D.C.’s crime numbers were significantly understated.

“It is evident that a significant number of reports had been misclassified, making crime appear artificially lower than it was,” Pirro said in a statement.

Pirro said MPD’s conduct “does not rise to the level of a criminal charge,” but added that it is up the department to “take steps to internally address these underlying issues.”

PIRRO TEARS INTO PRITZKER AFTER DEADLY WEEKEND IN CHICAGO: ‘HE SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF’

Pirro’s office began investigating reports of deflated crime statistics last August, as President Donald Trump initiated a federal crime crackdown in the district.

Trump issued an executive order addressing the “epidemic of crime” in the nation’s capital and deployed federal law enforcement personnel, including the National Guard.

“The uncovering of these manipulated crime statistics makes clear that President Trump has reduced crime even more than originally thought, since crimes were actually higher than reported,” Pirro stated. “His crime fighting efforts have delivered even more safety to the people of the District.”

TRUMP SAYS CHICAGO CRIME HAS FALLEN DRAMATICALLY DESPITE ‘EXTRAORDINARY RESISTANCE’ FROM LOCAL DEMOCRATS

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment and further information on its investigation into the MPD.

Pirro’s statement came after the House Oversight Committee released an interim report on Sunday claiming that outgoing MPD Chief Pamela Smith, who announced her resignation on Dec. 8, oversaw an unprecedented system of intervention in crime reporting.

The Republican-led committee alleges that Smith pressured commanders to lower classifications of crime and retaliated against those who reported spikes, according to the congressional report.

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MPD did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.

Whether you sat across the table from him or across the aisle, Rob Reiner left no doubt about what he cared about and was willing to fight for.

I had lunch with him once at Pete’s Cafe in downtown L.A., where he was far less interested in what was on his plate than what was on his mind. He was advocating for local investments in early childhood development programs, using funds from the tobacco tax created by Proposition 10 in 1998, which he helped spearhead.

I remember thinking that although political activism among celebrities was nothing new, Reiner was well beyond the easier tasks of making endorsements and hosting fundraisers. He had an understanding of public policy failures and entrenched inequities, and he wanted to talk about the moral duty to address them and the financial benefits of doing so.

“He was deeply passionate,” said Ben Austin, who was at that lunch and worked as an aide to Reiner at the time. “He was not just a Hollywood star … but a highly sophisticated political actor.”

Reiner, who was found dead in his Brentwood home over the weekend along with his wife, Michele, also was co-founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which was instrumental in the fight to legalize same-sex marriage in California in 2008.

Michele Singer Reiner was her husband’s “intellectual partner” as an activist, Austin said, even though he was usually the one whose face we saw. But Michele made her voice heard too, as she did when emailing me about the inexcusable crisis of veterans living on the street, including on the West L.A. veterans administration campus at a time when it was loaded with empty buildings.

I’d check on the progress and get back to her, and she’d check back again when little had changed. At one point I told her I’d been informed that beds in a new shelter would be filled by the end of the year.

“And if you believe that,” she wrote back, “I’ve got a bridge for you.”

In choosing his causes, Austin said of Rob Reiner, the actor-director-producer “was not jumping on a train that was already moving.” Universal preschool education was barely a fringe issue at the time, Austin said, but Reiner was more interested in social change than making political points.

Reiner’s aggressive instincts, though, sometimes drew pushback. And not just from President Trump, who established a new low for himself Monday with his social media claim that Reiner’s death was a result of his disdain for Trump.

Reiner resigned in 2006 as chairman of California’s First 5 commission, an outgrowth of Proposition 10, after Times reporting raised questions about the use of tax dollars to promote Proposition 82. That Reiner-backed ballot measure would have taxed the rich to plow money into preschool for 4-year-olds.

In 2014, Reiner was at the center of a bid to limit commercial development and chain stores in Malibu, and I co-moderated a debate that seemed more like a boxing match between him and developer Steve Soboroff.

As the Malibu Times described it:

“Rob Reiner and Steve Soboroff came out with guns blazing Sunday night during a Measure R debate that’s sure to be one of the most memorable — and entertaining — Malibu showdowns in recent town history.”

Reiner threw an early jab, accusing Soboroff of a backroom deal to add an exemption to the measure. That’s a lie, Soboroff shot back, claiming he was insulted by the low blow. Reiner, who owned houses in both Brentwood and Malibu, didn’t care much for my question about whether his slow-growth viewpoint smacked of NIMBY-ism.

“I would say there’s a lot of NIMBY-ism,” Reiner snapped. “You bet. It’s 100% NIMBY-ism. Everybody who lives here is concerned about their way of life.”

But that’s the way Reiner was. He let you know, without apology, where he stood, kind of like his “Meathead” character in Norman Lear’s hit TV show “All in the Family,” in which he butted heads with the bigoted Archie Bunker.

Getting back to President Trump, he too unapologetically lets you know where he stands.

But most people, in my experience, work with filters — they can self-censor when that’s what the moment calls for. It’s not a skill, it’s an innate sense of decency and human consideration that exists in the hearts and souls of normal people.

I did not know much about the history of Nick Reiner’s addiction issues and his temporary homelessness. But it became clear shortly after the bodies were found that the Reiners’ 32-year-old son might have been involved, and he was indeed booked a short time later on suspicion of murder.

What I do know is that with such an unspeakable horror, and with the family’s survivors left to sort through the madness of it all, a better response from the president would have been silence.

Anything but a grave dance.

The Reiners died, Trump said, “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME … .” The deaths occurred, Trump continued, “as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness …”

It was a reaction, Austin said, “that makes the case, better than Rob ever could have, about why Trump has no business being president of the United States.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com

WILLIAMS & CONNOLLY LLP
Hon. James Comer
Hon. Robert Garcia
December 10, 2025 Page 3

That means, of the original eight individuals (aside from my clients) subpoenaed in August, only one has testified live, Attorney General Barr, who was Attorney General in 2019 when Epstein was investigated, indicted, and killed himself in federal custody.’ HOGR’s insistence that its work requires appearances from only three of the original ten witnesses called, two of whom are named “Clinton”, lays bare the partisan motivations behind insisting that my clients give live testimony. There is no credible basis for seeking such testimony.

President Clinton left office nearly twenty-five years ago. While in office, the Epstein matter was not before any part of the federal government, nor was it in the public domain. Furthermore, he had no relationship with Mr. Epstein for nearly twenty years before Mr. Epstein’s death. Mr. Epstein was first charged in 2006 by the State of Florida for a misdemeanor, executed a federal non-prosecution agreement in 2007, and pleaded guilty to two state felony charges in 2008. For context, and to note the historically high bar Congress has set until now, the Chairman has observed, “There have been two presidents in the last century that have been subpoenaed by Congress…. and neither ended up testifying in front of Congress.” (Washington Examiner, Aug. 6, 2025). No former President has appeared before Congress since 1983, forty-two years ago (and President Gerald Ford did so to discuss the upcoming celebration of the 1987 bicentennial of the enactment of the Constitution).² That is for good reason. Any legislative request for testimony from a current or former President inevitably raises separation of powers issues.³ While the Committee has indicated it respects the restraints of executive privilege when a President is asked for information (as Congress itself asks the Executive Branch to respect the Speech or Debate Clause), it is bound by Constitution, tradition, and practice to recognize the

1 I would note that in reviewing the 127-page transcript of Attorney General Barr’s testimony before the Committee, the word Clinton appears seven (7) times:

Secretary Clinton is mentioned three (3) times (once in conjunction with the Clinton Foundation). Two (2) were regarding President Trump’s actions relating to Russia and the 2016 election, far afield from the Epstein matter. The third reference was whether she somehow planted President Trump’s name in the Epstein files, despite her last serving in government nearly thirteen years ago. Barr’s testimony undercuts this conjecture.

President Clinton is mentioned three (3) times. In response to questions from the Committee, Barr states that there was no evidence President Clinton visited the island of Little St. James.

2 Further illustrating this separation of powers concern, President Reagan was not asked to appear before the congressional committees reviewing the Iran-Contra events, and President Clinton himself provided information privately to the independent (and not congressional) 9/11 Commission on a matter of national security and international relations.

3

See Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593, 612-13 (2024) (reviewing the importance of maintaining the separations of power involving requests of Presidents in explaining presumptive privilege).