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Rep. Julie Fedorchak, R-N.D., decried “out of control” violence in the nation’s capital city and revealed that she was assaulted by a gang of youths in the streets of Washington, D.C., before the Trump administration’s takeover.
Speaking with reporters outside the Capitol building during a Republican Study Committee (RSC) press conference on Tuesday, Fedorchak, who is the sole member of the House of Representatives from North Dakota, agreed with her fellow Republicans that congressional action is needed to help keep D.C. safe.
She said she herself was attacked in broad daylight in D.C.’s Navy Yard neighborhood, which is located just a few minutes’ drive from the Capitol and is a popular neighborhood for members of Congress and staffers. The neighborhood is also home to the Nationals’ baseball stadium.
“D.C. is a beautiful city. It’s an amazing city, and it’s the best capital in the world. But it isn’t safe. We all know this,” said Fedorchak. “Crime in our nation’s capital is out of control. If D.C. were a state, it would have the highest homicide rate in the country.”
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“In fact, I felt this myself recently in a small way,” she continued. “I was walking down the street in July and near my apartment in Navy Yard, not very far from home, and I felt something hard hit me in the in the back of my head. It was broad daylight. I was very startled. I was on the phone at the time, and just as that happened, a pack of juveniles came rushing by on their bikes and I turned to look around and see what had happened. And a large, hard plastic object had been thrown directly at my head.”
“Now that was a small, minor incident. I wasn’t harmed, but the young people who did it, did it with reckless abandon and with zero fear of consequences,” she said. “They gathered in a circle not far from me after that and sat there and laughed.”
Fedorchak said this assault is just another example of “how crime is out of control in this city, and there aren’t any consequences.”
In August, President Donald Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to place the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) under federal control in response to rampant violent crime in the city. One of the reasons cited by the president was the epidemic of violent youth gangs terrorizing residents in the streets of D.C. In early August, a former DOGE staffer named Edward Coristine was violently assaulted by a group of D.C. youths and left bloodied in the street. Trump called the perpetrators “thugs” and vowed to exert his powers to federalize D.C.
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Fedorchak praised Trump’s crackdown in D.C. and agreed with other Republicans present that more action is needed from Congress to help the president restore order to the city.
“America is the greatest country in the world. There’s no reason why our capital should have a violent crime rate higher than some of the most dangerous places in the world,” she said.
“Many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have falsely claimed that D.C. crime stats are at a 30-year low. But let’s remember that crime is not just about statistics. It’s about people.”
She pointed to the recent killing of 21-year-old congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in northwest D.C. in June.
“It’s about the mother who sent her child here to intern in one of our offices this summer, never to see him again. It’s about all the families who suffer from crime in this very city. It’s about the Metropolitan Police Union, who agrees that they are stretched too thin and don’t have the resources to take care of crime in this city, and to provide a safe environment. It’s about staffers, interns, families and visitors who live with the daily reality of coming to a city that isn’t safe.”
Rep. Ron Estes, R-Kan., whose office Tarpinian-Jachym was interning with when he was killed, also weighed in during the press conference, calling the murder “a senseless crime.”
“To this day, it’s not been solved by the Washington, D.C., police … That’s why I applaud President Trump and the work that he’s doing in terms of making sure that we do have a safe capital,” he said.
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“Yesterday, I was able to walk around the Navy Yard with my daughter, and it was great to see the National Guard out there patrolling around,” he said. “It was a safe environment for people to hang out. It was nice. There was a family there having a birthday party for one of their children.”
During the press conference, Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., announced that Congress would be asserting greater control over D.C. to ensure the city remains safe for residents and visitors.
“In 1973, Congress granted D.C. limited home rule authority through the District of Columbia Self-Government Reorganization Act, also called the Home Rule Act. In the Home Rule Act, Congress reserves the right at any time to exercise its constitutional authority as the legislature for the district, which includes the right to review and block local legislation before it takes effect. It has now become necessary for Congress to exercise such authority,” she said.
“Why? Because the D.C. city council is seeking to exercise its authority not for the best interests of its citizens or the broader community, but for political purposes,” she continued. “For years now, the D.C. city council has not only prioritized left-wing policies and programs but intentionally sought to hide their activities from Congress. It is a new day in D.C., however, and Congress intends to once again assert its authority to ensure that Washington, D.C., rightfully reflects and represents this great nation on the national and international stage.”
RSC Chair August Pfluger, R-Texas, stated, “Now, Congress must take the next step and use our Article One powers.”
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“We cannot and will not allow D.C. to fall into a hellscape again when the local government fails,” he added. “It’s our constitutional duty to act. Congress has a clear constitutional authority over D.C., and we will use it without hesitation to continue making D.C. safe and great again.”
In a separate press conference taking place elsewhere at the Capitol at the same time, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., also commented on Trump’s D.C. crackdown. He downplayed the crackdown’s success, claiming that “every single area of criminal activity” was “on the way down prior to the arrival of the National Guard.”
Jeffries suggested the crackdown was “probably the result of Donald Trump trying to figure out a way to change the topic, given his deep unpopularity.”
He said he would not support Congress extending the emergency declaration to allow the Trump administration to continue its crackdown.
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