The White House misrepresented and exaggerated a recent crime report to overstate the impact of last summer’s federal intervention in four cities, according to a NOTUS review.
On July 23, the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan criminal justice policy organization, released a report on crime in several cities. Days later, the White House cited the report in a news release touting President Donald Trump’s record on public safety. In the release, the White House claimed that the greatest turnaround was seen in four cities where Trump sent federal agency officials and National Guard troops — a claim the data didn’t support. And two of the four cities the White House mentioned — Memphis and New Orleans — weren’t even included in the CCJ report cited in the White House’s release.
The White House claimed that, “The steepest homicide drops have come in cities where the Trump Administration stepped in after Democrat leaders failed to act,” specifically listing Memphis, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. But the steepest homicide drops weren’t in those four cities, according to Ernesto Lopez, the CCJ senior researcher who co-wrote the report.