President Trump is right to be angry about violent crime in D.C. As one of us (Stimson) wrote in these pages in January, it’s time to make D.C. safe again.
There are two ways to do that: an easy way and a hard way. The choice is up for debate—but what’s not is that it’s well past time to get this done.
The easy way to make D.C. safe is by enforcing the criminal laws to the maximum, targeting violent thugs, including eligible teens, and throwing them in prison. This isn’t rocket science, as one of us (Stimson again) testified before the House Judiciary Committee on how to fix violent crime in D.C. But until now, we haven’t had a chief felony prosecutor willing to do the right thing.
Big Balls Beat Down
The latest outrageous crime took place last weekend against Edward Coristine. Better known as former DOGE staffer “Big Balls,” Coristine was assaulted by a swarm of violent juveniles near Dupont Circle at 3 a.m. He wasn’t doing anything flashy like picking a fight. He was standing outside his vehicle with his girlfriend when the group approached and demanded to take his car.
Coristine got his girlfriend into the car and turned around to calmly engage with the approaching suspects. But this is 2025 in Washington, D.C., and apparently having a level head gets you curb-stomped. The teens beat him relentlessly, only stopping after a patrolling Metro Police Department vehicle arrived on scene. Two 15-year-olds, a boy and a girl, were arrested while fleeing the scene. The rest got away.
Let’s be clear: this wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. This wasn’t a drug deal. This wasn’t gang retaliation. This was a random beatdown, orchestrated by juvenile thugs, in one of the most expensive zip codes in the nation.
Unfortunately, that’s the inevitable outcome in a city led by those more committed to managing the optics of punishment than the reality of violence. A city where the term “juvenile” serves as a get-out-of-jail-free card for everything from pistol-whipping to carjacking. A city where the elite pretend their policies are humane while their citizens get stomped in the street.
Blame the D.C. City Council
The D.C. City Council has proven itself incapable of reforming the criminal code for the District.
A few years ago, it voted unanimously to pass a criminal code overhaul that would have slashed maximum sentences across the board, stripped mandatory minimum penalties for everything but first-degree murder, and defanged the very enhancements prosecutors use to take down repeat offenders, armed robbers, and gang members. It even tried to eliminate the crime of carjacking entirely by absorbing it into the lesser offense of robbery.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the council also sought to cut the maximum penalty for a violent felony involving a firearm from 30 years to four years, to reduce sentencing for sexual abuse of a minor, and to remove the ability to “stack” penalties—meaning those who committed multiple violent crimes in one go would be sentenced for just one offense.
Why?
As the council described it, the existing code was too harsh, too complex, and too “outdated.” Never mind that the old code actually kept dangerous people behind bars. Never mind that it gave victims a fighting chance at justice. The new code was ideologically pure (if you’re pro-criminal)—and functionally useless.
Here’s the kicker: the council’s proposal didn’t come from thin air. It came from its own Criminal Code Reform Commission, an unelected group of “experts” who decided that D.C.’s crime problem wasn’t too much crime, it was too much punishment. The commission rewrote the rules to protect criminals first. Victims? They didn’t even make it to the table.
In my testimony, I (Stimson) didn’t just object to these rewrites. I opposed them in their entirety, warning that they would further “disincentivize cooperation with law enforcement,” reward repeat offenders, and send the message that D.C. doesn’t take violent crime seriously.
These reforms were vetoed by Mayor Muriel Bowser, but the council attempted to force the law through anyway—forcing a bipartisan move by Congress to step in and block it.
Yes, Congress. Because under the Home Rule Act, D.C. can pass its own laws, but Congress retains the final say. And when the city council voted to reward gunmen and silence victims, Congress had a duty to hit the brakes, which, thankfully, it did.
But this wasn’t a one-off policy misfire. The council has had years to fix D.C.’s falling prosecution rates, its spiraling youth crime, and its court backlogs. Instead, it spent its time dismantling what little accountability was left in the system.
Need proof? Look outside.
In 2023, the city recorded 274 homicides—its highest body count in 20 years. Carjackings? 959 in one year, more than double from 2022. And according to MPD data, the majority were committed by juveniles.
The “kids” aren’t alright. They’re armed, organized, and increasingly emboldened by a system that doesn’t scare them anymore.
Gun possession prosecutions have collapsed. Between 2018 and 2022, the police made 5,558 arrests for carrying a pistol without a license, but only 97 of those cases resulted in a prison sentence. That’s 1.7%. The rest? Released.
Blame Biden D.C. U.S. Attorney Matt Graves
Under President Joe Biden, Matthew Graves served as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, an office that handles both federal and local crimes.
But under Graves’s hands-off approach to violent crime, his office’s declination rate spiked. In 2023, his office declined to prosecute 67% of arrests! In other words, two out of every three people arrested by police walked away without any charges—even for violent offenses.
As I (Stimson) pointed out in my congressional testimony, the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office is the same size as the San Diego District Attorney’s Office, with each office having about 330 prosecutors. But over the last 20 years, the San Diego DA’s Office handled over 500,000 cases, leaving just a 22.6% declination rate for the last 20 years.
What’s the difference? While the San Diego DA focuses on prosecuting violent criminals and protecting the rights of real victims, Graves was a social justice warrior who saw criminal defendants as victims.
There are two ways to go about fixing the chaos in D.C.: the easy way or the hard way.
Let’s begin with the easy way.
Fully Empower Jeanine Pirro to Lead a Prosecutorial Comeback
D.C. doesn’t need a prosecutor who tweets about crime like Matt Graves did. It needs a U.S. Attorney who has legal tools, hands-on experience, and the moral clarity to wield them.
Enter Jeanine Pirro, confirmed 50–45 by the Senate as D.C.’s U.S. Attorney.
Pirro brings decades of courtroom experience as a New York County DA and judge, and from her first day on the job in May, she made it clear she’s wearing two hats: that of a federal prosecutor and that of a local prosecutor.
She immediately targeted illegal firearms and crimes committed by illegal aliens, directing her office to check the immigration status of arrestees. The message was unambiguous: D.C. will no longer tolerate soft targets or soft sentences.
That’s a hard pivot from her predecessor, who spent more time explaining away crime statistics than prosecuting the criminals behind them. Under his watch, prosecution rates plummeted while violent crime soared—and the public paid the price.
But Jeanine Pirro is a prosecutor’s prosecutor. As D.C.’s U.S. Attorney, she holds the authority to prosecute both federal and local crimes. That includes everything from illegal gun possession and carjackings to homicides and gang activity.
But authority without resources and a backbone is useless.
Fully Staff the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office
All well-run big city DA offices employ investigators, trained law enforcement officers with substantial experience in investigating and solving crimes. The DA’s office hires them as full-time employees to assist prosecutors in building their cases.
The gold standard is two prosecutors for every investigator, or a 2:1 ratio. Poorly staffed offices have a 4:1 or higher ratio.
The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office has a 100:1 ratio! They currently employ three investigators for 100 Superior Court prosecutors. That’s just pathetic.
Without investigators, prosecutors must cajole and beg the arresting officers or detectives who solved their case to do the follow-up work to prepare the case for trial. That’s not their job—but in D.C., it’s the norm, and has been forever.
To solve this glaring problem, Pirro needs to hire at least 100 full-time investigators to assist her office’s felony prosecutors, especially in violent crime cases involving juveniles, gangs, and firearms.
We already know where this funding could come from: the now-defunct DOGE initiative. Redirect that money and let Pirro reform the office and bring it up to industry standards.
The office also has 90—yes, 90—openings for Assistant United States Attorneys. Morale has been in the basement for years, leading many prosecutors to just leave.
Why? Lots of reasons—not the least of which is that prosecutors aren’t treated with respect in D.C.
But more than that, people who want to be prosecutors want to prosecute. They want to do justice and keep communities safe. Matt Graves hired woke social justice warriors who didn’t really want to be prosecutors. They saw defendants as victims. As a result, dedicated prosecutors left the office.
Add to that the fact that D.C. AUSAs are treated poorly by the D.C. Superior Court, which requires them to stand in line outside regardless of the weather—directly alongside defendants, victims, and others. “Prosecutor-only” entrances to courthouses exist in every city across the country—except, apparently, in DC.
As if that’s not bad enough, the U.S. Attorney’s office was, until recently, several blocks from both the superior court and the federal district court, meaning prosecutors had to schlep their trial bag and exhibits from their office to court in D.C.’s abysmal weather and then wait in line to get into the very courthouse where they were supposed to do justice. Even now, the office is still a block away from the courthouse.
Many (if not most) prosecutors’ offices are connected to the courthouse where trials take place. But not in D.C.
There is an elegant and simple solution to this problem: build a new U.S. Attorney’s Office smack dab in the middle of the D.C. Superior Court and the U.S. District Court, connect that new office to both courthouses, and provide prosecutor-only entrances to both.
Fill the 10 Vacant Seats on the D.C. Superior Court
But even if the prosecutorial issues are fixed, problems remain. No matter how airtight a case is, justice dies if the courts can’t carry the load.
Right now, there are 10 vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court, the court responsible for trying local felonies such as assaults, robberies, and murders.
Those empty benches create a cascade of problems: delayed trials, crowded dockets, weak plea deals, and often, no sentencing at all. Prosecutors are forced to prioritize only the most airtight or high-profile cases, while everything else slips through the cracks.
Trump can streamline this bottleneck by immediately nominating a full slate of judges—men and women with reputations for fairness, strength, and integrity.
One example: Eddie O’Connell, a respected federal prosecutor who won unanimous support from Senate Democrats during his recent confirmation hearing. O’Connell isn’t a partisan pawn—he’s the type of judge who can restore credibility to a court in freefall.
The D.C. Superior Court needs judges who are committed to the rule of law. That means no more weak social justice warriors who let career criminals out on pretrial release and under-sentence violent criminals. Nominate solid judges. Confirm them quickly. And restore law and order.
Try Violent Armed Juveniles as Adults
Violent teenagers don’t need a fifth, sixth, and seventh chance—they need to be tried as adults. In D.C., brutal group assaults often end with diversion programs and counseling referrals, not consequences. That’s the default when 15-year-olds commit adult crimes.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. D.C. is out of step with many cities whose officials understand that while most juveniles should be handled by the juvenile justice system, violent recidivists need to be tried as adults.
The problem in D.C. is this: Unlike regular DA offices around the country, which typically have their own juvenile division, the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office does not have any such division. That’s because juvenile crime is handled by the notoriously lenient and liberal D.C. city attorney’s office (called the D.C. Attorney General’s Office).
But here’s the kicker: Pirro’s office has the authority to remove many violent juvenile cases from the D.C. Attorney General’s Office to her office and try those people as adults in D.C. Superior Court. And for serious crimes like carjacking, aggravated assault, and group beatings, she should take every single case.
How many violent armed juveniles did Matt Graves prosecute as adults? Zero.
Trump backed our approach directly in a Truth Social post:
Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens… If D.C. doesn’t get its act together…we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City… and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore.
Trump’s message is clear: Age is not an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card. If you’re organized enough to ambush a federal staffer and steal his property, you’re old enough to face real prosecution. This isn’t about vengeance, it’s about clarity. D.C. shouldn’t be a safe haven for underage thugs.
Lock in Minimum Sentencing Requirements for Plea Deals
Plea bargaining isn’t going anywhere. But right now, it’s being used as a quiet escape hatch for even the most serious offenders.
In too many cases, prosecutors agree to charge reductions or time served in exchange for a guilty plea—especially when the courts are overwhelmed or the defendant is under 18.
The result? Violent criminals serve little to no time, and victims are left wondering what the point of justice was in the first place.
Pirro should make it clear to her prosecutors that giving cases away for a slap on the wrist won’t cut it anymore. Graves is gone. She’s the new boss.
If you plead out a defendant to a slam-dunk carjacking case, that criminal needs to go to prison. If you plead out a defendant to an armed assault, don’t agree to a sentence of probation or time served. No exceptions. No sweetheart deals.
Minimums work. They anchor outcomes. They prevent a return to catch-and-release justice. And they reassure the public that a guilty plea doesn’t mean getting away with it. Criminals can finally be held to account.
The Hard Way
If D.C.’s leaders—including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who refused to confirm Eddie O’Connell before the August recess—keep shrugging off reform, there’s another option on the table, and Trump made it clear he’s not afraid to use it.
In his Truth Social post following the Coristine assault, he didn’t mince words:
If D.C. doesn’t get its act together… we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore.
That’s not a threat. It’s a constitutional reality.
Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” over the District of Columbia. That authority has never gone away.
In 1973, Congress delegated some of its power through the Home Rule Act, allowing D.C. to elect its own mayor and city council. But that delegation can be revoked at any time.
If it were repealed, the consequences would be sweeping:
- The D.C. Council would be dissolved.
- All legislative authorities would revert to Congress or a federally appointed administrator.
- The illusion of local control would be replaced by federal accountability.
This is the nuclear option. It would face fierce opposition from Democrats in the Senate, especially from Schumer, who has blocked even basic crime reforms tied to D.C. governance.
Politically, it’s an uphill battle. But that doesn’t make it useless.
The threat of repeal is a powerful tool of leverage, one that Congress should not be afraid to invoke. If the D.C. Council continues to act like an unaccountable activist committee instead of a serious governing body, then the conversation about home rule should move from hypothetical to imminent.
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