Senate Republicans spotlighted violent crime in Washington D.C., featuring testimony from Washington Examiner reporter Anna Giaritelli, who said her assault was mishandled by D.C. authorities and never counted in official crime data.

“I had no idea that D.C. police were and continue to cover up crime until I became a victim and went and looked for my own crime stats and found none,” Giaritelli said.

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At a press conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, she recounted how she was sexually assaulted in broad daylight outside Union Station in 2020. Police identified her assailant through DNA evidence, but a judge released him the very next day because of concerns about jail overcrowding. Over the next year and a half, she said, he was arrested five more times, including for indecent exposure outside the Supreme Court and for wielding a machete, but each time was quickly released. 

.@Anna_Giaritelli: “He had returned to living on the street blocks from my apartment building, and I didn't feel safe, and so I moved away from DC into the state of Texas.” pic.twitter.com/42vZENkE6B

— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) September 3, 2025

Her assailant was finally held in jail in late 2021 as the case moved to trial, and in 2022 he pleaded guilty to sexual abuse and was sentenced to prison. Giaritelli said her attacker served only about two years before being released, despite also having attacked an off-duty female police officer and accumulating multiple other arrests.

“He had returned to living on the street blocks from my apartment building, and I didn’t feel safe, and so I moved away from DC into the state of Texas,” Giaritelli said. “What happened to me was humiliating as a woman, and it was disgusting. And the way I was treated by the police sends a message that what happened to me didn’t matter.”

She later discovered that only first-degree and some second-degree charges appear on the city’s crime map. “Why don’t I count, and how many more women, men, and children have been uncounted?” she asked.

Republicans said Giaritelli’s story epitomized the dangers of what they called D.C.’s broken justice system and lack of transparency. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) praised her for “shining a light” on both public safety failures and what he called the city’s habit of “cooking the books” to downplay crime. 

The Texas senator said Republicans are working with the new U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro to pursue legal changes, including reforms to how juvenile offenders are prosecuted, while urging D.C.’s mayor and city council to embrace tougher enforcement. “Ultimately, the responsibility should be at the mayor and city council level,” Cornyn said, “but if they’re not going to do the job, particularly in the nation’s capital, we will.”  

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) said Giaritelli’s case was not isolated, arguing that similar crimes occur “eight times a day” in the city. He warned that residents, tourists, students, and congressional staff are too often left vulnerable. “Visitors don’t come to Washington to face a murder every other day or a carjacking on a daily basis,” Marshall said. “They come to see their nation’s capital, and they should be safe while they’re here.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) tied the issue to Congress’s constitutional role, warning that if local officials fail to protect residents, lawmakers may need to reconsider D.C.’s Home Rule status. “This city has a national constituency,” Lee said. “If crime is a problem here, we have to own it.”

The issue gained additional urgency last week as the House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into allegations that Metropolitan Police Department leadership manipulated crime statistics to make the city appear safer. Whistleblowers allege supervisors instructed officers to downgrade felony crimes to misdemeanors across all seven patrol districts, and at least one district commander has been placed on leave.

The press conference comes amid signs of a longer-term federal presence in D.C, but that has not been finalized, according to reporting from CNN. On Tuesday, Trump signaled plans to expand his crime initiative to other cities. “We’re going in,” he said of possible deployments to Chicago and Baltimore. “I have an obligation. This isn’t a political thing.”

Cornyn backed Trump’s stance, dismissing Democratic governors who argue federal enforcement without consent infringes on state sovereignty. 

“I think they’re wrong,” Cornyn said. “Somehow, President Trump has taken a stand for public safety and caused mayors and governors in some of these blue states to take a stand for the criminals and for a lack of public safety. You would think they would welcome the help that President Trump has offered, rather than resisting and tolerating this new normal.”  

But local leaders pushed back. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has cooperated with federal efforts, has mixed sentiments. She has acknowledged that the surge helped reduce violent crime but called it a “break in trust,” questioning masked federal presence in local neighborhoods and emphasizing the importance of transparency.  Meanwhile, in a stronger rebuke, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat, said last week that D.C. “did not request or consent to the mass deployment of National Guard troops… despite D.C.’s crime rate being at a 30‑year low.” 

And in Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker strongly rejected Trump’s apparent strategy. “No, I will not call the president asking troops to be sent to Chicago,” he said on Tuesday, adding he refuses to “play a reality game show with Donald Trump again.” Pritzker affirmed his state would challenge any unauthorized deployment in court.

By seizing on the federal crackdown in Washington, Republicans are working to make crime a defining issue heading into the 2026 midterm elections. Party leaders have signaled they want to force Democrats into difficult votes on policing and public safety, a strategy they believe contrasts with what they call the District’s “soft-on-crime” leadership. 

A MAN WENT TO PRISON FOR ASSAULTING ME. DC POLICE CRIME STATS SHOW HE WAS NEVER ARRESTED

Charts at the press conference highlighted declines in burglary, robbery, and carjackings since the Guard’s arrival in D.C. But as Republicans pointed to the numbers, Giaritelli reminded them that statistics alone don’t tell the full story. Her own assault never appeared in the city’s data, even though it led to a conviction and prison sentence. 

“I’m here today for the victims who D.C. police refuses to count,” she said. “There are not big victims and little victims, there are just victims. I’m here for the uncounted ones.”