Deep state rag Politico — the same outlet conning subsistence funding from American tax dollars — defended an allegedly violent illegal alien in an attempt to stop the Trump administration from cleaning up Washington, D.C.
The corporate media has been falsely insisting since last week, when President Donald Trump declared an emergency and took federal control of the D.C. Metropolitan Police, that the nation’s capital is really the safest city on the planet. In doing so, they have been fighting against Trump’s crackdown on violence and crime by trying to revise the past, insisting D.C. is perfectly safe, or giving ridiculous accounts of how the crime crisis is “nonexistent.”
In Politico Playbook, essentially a D.C. “insider” section of the outlet’s website, Deputy Editor Zach Stanton and others wrote of an arrest in the city, claiming the assailant was simply a “moped driver.” In an apparent attempt at fearmongering, Politico described that “moped driver” as being arrested by “masked law enforcement officers,” presenting the driver as innocent — if not, victimized.
Painting the police in even worse light, Politico portrayed “onlookers” and “pedestrian[s]” as being in the officers’ chain of command, and when the officers told the bystander they were not required to answer to the crowd, Politico said the officers “barked back.”
“The officers never identified themselves, never provided their badge numbers, never revealed their agency,” Politico wrote. “They took the moped driver into an unmarked SUV and spirited him off, destination unknown.”
In standard, slimy D.C. journalist fashion, the writers noted that brunch service at upscale restaurant Le Diplomate “continued without interruption,” as if to highlight the happening taking place in the proverbial “our community.”
That piece of information, however, actually sheds light on a phenomenon much more palpable in the city since the federalization of Metro Police and the mobilization of the National Guard: a collective sigh of relief from even some of the most far-left, pro-crime, elitist swamp creatures in D.C. who might frequent an upscale Sunday brunch at Le Diplomate.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took Politico to task, noting, Politico Playbook “today was written to fear DC residents into believing federal law enforcement randomly arrested an innocent ‘moped driver.’”
“The ‘moped driver’ was an Illegal Alien Criminal from Venezuela with suspected gang affiliation and an active final order of removal from the country,” Leavitt continued. “Upon his arrest, the Illegal Alien Criminal resisted arrest and a law enforcement officer suffered a concussion as a result.”
Politico couldn’t be bothered. They were too busy making sure the evil “barking” police officers getting injured in order to make the American capital respectable were portrayed as a secret police force disappearing random people on a whim.
Left-wing journalists have been trying to have it both ways — asserting that there is not a serious crime problem, while also arguing that the Trump administration is not doing enough to clean up the crime problem.
Peter Baker, the dopey chief White House correspondent at The New York Times, both insisted the crime problem was “nonexistent” and then, on Sunday, criticized the Trump administration for not deploying patrols to “where the crime is.”
Well, which is it?
As The Federalist reported, Baker and his ilk are perfectly happy obscuring the truth while those who live and work in D.C. without pseudo-immunity provided by money and political power suffer with the consequences.
The New York Times’ stupidity does not stop there.
Reporters at the Times opened a story called “Where D.C. Crime Is Bad, Residents Question Trump’s Motives” by noting that the southeast D.C. neighborhood Congress Heights has already seen multiple murders and numerous robberies in 2025.
Claiming that Trump’s move to crack down on crime is unpopular among the residents of D.C.’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods (which is by itself a highly suspicious claim), the authors wrote, “It’s not that they don’t believe crime is a problem in the nation’s capital. They know it is.”
That part is true. Hilariously, they then go on to say that the Trump administration is not doing enough to police black-majority neighborhoods — something the left has never had a problem with before.
“They just don’t believe the president cares — at least not about them. If he did, they asked, why are residents hearing of federal agents roving the whiter areas of 16th Street Northwest but less so in their largely Black neighborhood? Why are National Guard members posing with tourists at the Washington Monument?” they wrote.
It used to be the case that the corporate media would turn a blind eye to murder, violence, and other crime in black-majority neighborhoods, insisting that anyone who questioned it was racist.
Perhaps Trump’s crackdown is enough to get them to start paying attention — if only a couple of decades too late.
Breccan F. Thies is a correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.
