The Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Thursday launched an investigation into the FBI over its alleged “failure to report complete, accurate national crime data.”
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said the bureau “failed to include” in its 2022 data a 4.5% increase in national crime.
The FBI had initially reported a 1.7% decrease in violent crime in 2022, but later “quietly” revised those figures, Comer said. Comer alleged that the FBI failed to include in its initial count “an additional 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, 33,459 robberies, and 37,091 aggravated assaults.”
Comer said the FBI’s failure to report this data “draws into question the veracity” of the 2023 Crime in the Nation report.
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House Oversight and Accountability committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) speaks during a hearing with Commissioner of the FDA Dr. Robert Califf in the Rayburn House Office Building on April 11, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
He noted that Vice President Kamala Harris “touted the 2023 data” and the media used it “to dispel Americans’ real concerns about crime.”
“The Committee is concerned that the FBI’s recent failures to report accurate crime data are politically motivated,” Comer said. “The Committee is seeking documents and communications to understand the FBI’s failure to provide Congress and the American people with accurate crime data and whether the 2023 data is, in fact, accurate.”
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