{"id":1906771,"date":"2023-03-29T16:27:57","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T20:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1906771"},"modified":"2023-03-30T09:10:09","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T13:10:09","slug":"biden-appointee-refuses-to-enforce-law-in-washington-d-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-appointee-refuses-to-enforce-law-in-washington-d-c\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Appointee Refuses to Enforce Law in Washington D.C."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbiden-appointee-refuses-to-enforce-law-in-washington-d-c%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1906771&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><section>We\u2019ve heard a lot about crime in Washington D.C. Both because crime has spiked in the city, and because the D.C. local government is filled with a bunch of prosecution-averse politicians.<\/p>\n<p>Two high-profile crimes\u2013one against a Minnesota Congresswoman named Angie Craig, and another against an aide to Rand Paul\u2013have upped the visibility of D.C.\u2019s crime problem. After Craig\u2019s assault, Congress vetoed a criminal justice reform measure that the D.C. government was pushing.<\/p>\n<p>All this leaves the impression that the real problem in Washington D.C. is a Leftist local government that coddles criminals.<\/p>\n<p>That impression is wrong, or at least incomplete. It turns out that a big piece of the puzzle is Joe Biden\u2019s choice for U.S. Attorney in the District.<\/p>\n<p>Washington D.C. is, ultimately, run by the federal government. There is nominal local government, but unlike the several states, the ultimate responsibility lies with the federal government. It was set up that way by the founders to (try to) ensure that the government itself didn\u2019t become an overwhelming political actor with its own interests. Technically the states run the District through the federal government, which is of course run by Congress and the President.<\/p>\n<p>This is why there is always talk about DC statehood\u2013essentially overruling the Constitution and making the federal government itself a state.<\/p>\n<p>This is all background to understanding this: the U.S. Attorney, not a local District Attorney, is the prosecutor for the District. He is a Joe Biden appointee.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/dc-md-va\/2023\/03\/29\/us-attorneys-office-charges-declined-dc-police\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">And he doesn\u2019t prosecute crimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Or, should I say, he refuses to prosecute 2\/3rds of all crimes charged in the District. That\u2019s some \u201cprosecutorial discretion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As you might imagine, the Metro Police aren\u2019t happy. They catch the bad guys, and Biden\u2019s appointee lets them go.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As the District grapples with rising crime and increasing attention from federal lawmakers over public safety issues, a startling statistic emerged in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Last year, federal prosecutors in the District\u2019s U.S. attorney\u2019s office chose not to prosecute 67 percent of those arrested by police officers in cases that would have been tried in D.C. Superior Court.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That figure, first reported earlier this month on the substack DC Crime Facts, nearly doubled from 2015, when prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office declined to prosecute 35 percent of such cases.<\/p>\n<p>The increased number of declined cases has sparked frustration among city leaders who are already under a national microscope from members of Congress for their crime fighting efforts. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday where Republicans will examine management of D.C., particularly on crime and safety. Earlier this month, the Senate joined the House of Representatives in voting to reject an overhaul of the city\u2019s criminal code, in part because it called for reducing penalties for certain crimes, including carjacking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, Congress was right to reject the ridiculously woke \u201creform\u201d of the city\u2019s criminal code, but if the prosecutor refuses to prosecute it really doesn\u2019t make a bit of difference whether something is illegal or not.<\/p>\n<p>Biden\u2019s appointee is Matthew Graves, and he insists he is doing his job. I\u2019m not quite sure that he knows that his job is to prosecute criminals, though.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The U.S. attorney\u2019s office in the District is unique among federal prosecutor shops across the country. It prosecutes both local, D.C.<b>\u2013<\/b>based crimesin Superior Court, as any local prosecutor or district attorney\u2019s office would, as well as federal cases in U.S. District Court.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But even compared to a local prosecutor\u2019s office, a 67 percent declination rate is high. For example, in Wayne County, Mich., which includes Detroit, the prosecutor\u2019s office reported declining 33 percent of its cases last year. Prosecutors in Philadelphia declined 4 percent and prosecutors in Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, declined 14 percent, according to data from those offices.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Apparently, you don\u2019t need to have a Soros prosecutor in charge to spike the crime rate. A Biden appointee will do just fine.<\/p>\n<p>Graves claims that he is hampered by the deficiencies of DC\u2019s government and police, and in that he may have a point. But a pretty minor one. While a better police department would give him more slam-dunk cases rather than ones he would have to do work on, that isn\u2019t much of an excuse. It is a real problem, but not an excuse for giving up.<\/p>\n<p>Failing to prosecute 2\/3rds of cases is giving up.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Deborah Sines, a retired federal homicide prosecutor in the District, said the U.S. attorney\u2019s office is hampered by \u201cpoor police work,\u201d but also prosecutors and supervisors \u201cwho only want to try slam-dunk cases.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would get angry when I would see defendants in homicide cases in front of me who had previous gun possession charges that a prosecutor had previously dismissed,\u201d Sines said. \u201cSome cases are going to be challenging, yes. But that\u2019s your job. Do your job. Don\u2019t just dismiss it just because the evidence is not everything you want it to be or think it should be.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The consequences of Graves\u2019\u2013and by extension Biden\u2019s\u2013failures are dire:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As of Tuesday, overall crime was up in D.C. by 23 percent over the same time last year, fueled in large part by a spike in motor vehicle thefts, according to D.C. police data. Homicides were up 19 percent, though violent crime was even with last year because of drops in robberies and assaults with a deadly weapon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Let\u2019s go Brandon!<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019ve heard a lot about crime in Washington D.C. Both because crime has spiked in the city, and because the D.C. local government is filled with a bunch of prosecution-averse politicians. Two high-profile crimes\u2013one against a Minnesota Congresswoman named Angie Craig, and another against an aide to Rand Paul\u2013have upped the visibility of D.C.\u2019s crime<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1906772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Biden Appointee Refuses to Enforce Law in Washington D.C.","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[18791,3620,10924,4574,6547,3768,4086],"class_list":["post-1906771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-appointee","tag-biden","tag-d-c","tag-enforce","tag-law","tag-refuses","tag-washington"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Biden Appointee Refuses to Enforce Law in Washington D.C.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1906772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}