Lies & Deception from Trump & Turley about Violent Crime: Part 1- The Big Lie

Bradley Bowen | October 15, 2024

According to the George Washington University website, Jonathan Turley is:

…a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law.

Despite this, Turley has written an extremely misleading and deceptive editorial piece for The Hill, called “With fact-checks like these, how does truth stand a chance?”

Although it is possible that Turley is just stupid or ignorant about the issues he discusses in the editorial, and that the misleading and deceptive ideas in his editorial are the result of his stupidity or ignorance, it is much more likely that the falsehoods and deception in his editorial are intentional, and that the editorial displays serious dishonesty and untruthfulness by Turley.

Of course, lawyers who LIE for Donald Trump are nothing new (John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Sidney Powell, Michael Cohen, and Alan Dershowitz come to mind). Perhaps Jonathan Turley has decided to become a member of this sad club of Lawyers Opting to Lie for Donald Trump.

The first LIES in the article are contained in the title and in an opening quote:

Title: “With fact-checks like these, how does truth stand a chance?”

Opening Quote: “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

The title implies that Turley cares about TRUTH, but the contents of the editorial show this is NOT the case. The opening quote implies that Turley cares about FACTS, but the contents of the editorial show this is NOT the case.

LEAVING OUT IMPORTANT BACKGROUND INFORMATION

A BIG PROBLEM with Turley’s editorial, is that it leaves out some very important background information:

Turley never mentions or indicates that Donald Trump is a pathological liar.
Turley never mentions or indicates that Kamala Harris is NOT a pathological liar.
Turley never mentions or indicates that violent crime has been at historically low levels for about two decades.
Turley never mentions or indicates that there are two different major sources of information about crime rates in the United States (the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, and National Crime Victimization Surveys produced by DOJ).
Turley never mentions or indicates that the central question at issue (in the context of the presidential debate) is whether the violent crime rate under Biden’s presidency were higher or lower than the violent crime rate under Trump’s presidency.

Without this important background information, it is not possible to make reasonable judgments about the issues that Turley discusses concerning “fact checks” of Donald Trump’s claims about violent crime.

Probably the most important background information that Turley FAILS to mention is that violent crime rates have been at historically low levels for about two decades. You can see that this is so just by looking at this NCVS graph of the history of violent crime rates:

NOTE: I added the colored boxes and their labels to the graph above.

1993-1995: Very High Rates of Violent Crime (in the range of 70 to 80 violent crimes per 1,000 persons age 12 or older)
1996-1998: High But Less Than Very High Rates of Violent Crime (in the range of 50 to 70 violent crimes per 1,000 persons age 12 or older)
1999-2003: Moderate Rates of Violent Crime (in the range of 30 to 50 violent crimes per 1,000 persons age 12 and older)
2004-2023: Low Rates of Violent Crime (in the range of 16 to 30 violent crimes per 1,000 persons age 12 and older)

If Turley knows anything about violent crime rates, he surely knows this basic fact. So his failure to mention this very important background information is a strong indication that Turley is engaging in intentional deception. Either Turley is stupid or ignorant and so is unaware of this basic fact about violent crime in the US, or else he was aware of this fact but kept it to himself in order to mislead and deceive readers of his editorial. I lean towards the latter alternative because he is “…a nationally recognized legal scholar”.

TRUMP & TURLEY’S BIG LIE ABOUT VIOLENT CRIME

I will begin by addressing the BIG LIE in Turley’s editorial, and will later move on (in Part 2) to critically examine some of the more specific claims that Turley makes about violent crime rates.

During the presidential debate between Trump and Harris, Trump made a comment about crime in the United States:

…all over the world crime is down. All over the world except here. Crime here is up and through the roof. … Crime in this country is through the roof.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-trump-presidential-debate-transcript/story?id=113560542 (Viewed 10-11-24)

This was a BIG LIE by Trump, so David Muir, one of the moderators of the debate, did a fact-check of Trump’s claim on the spot:

DAVID MUIR: President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country…

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-trump-presidential-debate-transcript/story?id=113560542 (Viewed 10-11-24)

Muir was probably prepared in advance to do this fact check because Trump frequently LIES about violent crime in the United States.

In the above statements by Donald Trump, Trump does not specify that VIOLENT crime is “through the roof in this country.” However, Muir’s fact-check comment specifies that “violent crime is coming down”. One might think it is possible that Trump was not talking about VIOLENT crime rates going “through the roof” but was, rather, talking about property crime or crime in general.

But this possibility is unlikely because when Trump responded to Muir’s fact-check, Trump did NOT say “I was talking about property crimes” nor did Trump say “I was talking about crime in general, not violent crime.” Instead, Trump attacked the legitimacy of the crime statistics from the FBI that Muir had referenced:

…the FBI — they were defrauding statements. They didn’t include the worst cities. They didn’t include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-trump-presidential-debate-transcript/story?id=113560542 (Viewed 10-11-24)

In trying to undermine the legitimacy of the data from the FBI about violent crime rates that Muir referenced, Trump clearly indicates that Trump’s previous claim was indeed about an increase in VIOLENT crime in the United States.

Another reason why Muir was correct in interpreting Trump’s claim to mean that VIOLENT crime was “through the roof” in the US, is that Trump typically blames an alleged increase in crime on immigrants, and when he does so, Trump focuses on the violent crimes of rape and murder. For example, when Trump debated Biden back in June, he specifically mentioned rape and murder as crimes committed by illegal immigrants:

Trump claimed that migrants were entering the United States and killing women, saying that “these killers are coming into our country, and they are raping and killing women.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/politics/fact-checking-the-cnn-presidential-debate/index.html (see the section “Trump on migrants and crime” by Priscilla Alvarez and Daniel Dale)

Because Trump often talks about rape and murder in connection with illegal immigration, it was reasonable for Muir to take Trump’s comments about immigrants allegedly causing crime in the US to go “through the roof” as being a reference to VIOLENT crime.

Furthermore, it appears that Turley himself accepts Muir’s interpretation of Trump’s statement as being a reference to VIOLENT crime rates going “through the roof” because when Turley argues against Muir’s fact-check claim and in support of Trump’s claim, Turley gives examples of VIOLENT crime rates:

Violent crime was up…, rape is up …, robbery is up…and stranger violence is up…

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4879842-false-claims-harris-trump-debate

So, Muir, Trump, Turley, and I all agree that Trump’s claim that crime in the US has gone “through the roof” means this:

The rate of VIOLENT crime has drastically increased under the Biden administration.

Furthermore, since Trump was president for four years prior to Biden, and since the context is a presidential debate between Trump and Harris (who was Biden’s VP), Trump is clearly implying this claim:

The rate of VIOLENT crime has drastically increased under the Biden administration AS COMPARED TO the rate of VIOLENT crime under the Trump administration.

Such a comparison is clearly implied, because if the rate of violent crime under Trump’s administration was the SAME as the rate of violent crime under Biden’s administration, then Trump’s claim would have NO SIGNIFICANCE in terms of whether someone should vote for Trump or Harris.

This implied claim is a BIG FAT LIE! So, when Turley defends Trump on this issue, Turley is himself defending and promoting this BIG FAT LIE, just like when Giuliani supported Trump on the BIG FAT LIE that the 2020 election was “rigged” or “stolen”. Here is Turley expressing support for Trump’s BIG FAT LIE:

One of the most notable slap downs by ABC followed Trump commenting that crime rates have drastically risen during the Biden-Harris administration. Muir immediately balked and declared: “As you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.”

Harris and her allies have been repeating the claim by ABC. But the actual statistics show that Trump was right.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4879842-false-claims-harris-trump-debate

But Trump was NOT right on this issue, and Muir’s fact-check comment was correct. Contrary to the lies of Trump & Turley, the truth is this:

The rate of VIOLENT crime has DECREASED under the Biden administration AS COMPARED TO the rate of VIOLENT crime under the Trump administration.

The decrease is not a large one. Violent crime has not “drastically” decreased under the Biden administration, but the violent crime rate is LOWER under Biden than it was under Trump. This is true whether you look at the FBI UCR reports or the NCVS reports from the DOJ.

Furthermore, as I pointed out above, violent crime rates have been at a historically low level for about two decades. So, the whole idea that violent crime is “through the roof” in the United States is complete bullshit. I seriously doubt that Turley is so stupid or so ignorant that he is unaware of this basic fact about violent crime in the United States.

THE UCR DATA SHOWS THAT THE VIOLENT CRIME RATE IS LOWER UNDER BIDEN THAN UNDER TRUMP

One important source of information about violent crime in the United States is the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. This program releases annual reports on trends in crime, including violent crime.

Because it takes time to gather, organize, analyze, evaluate, and publish crime rate data in UCR reports, and because the year 2024 is still in progress, we don’t have a complete picture of crime rates in 2024. We do have FBI UCR reports and data on crime for the first three years of Biden’s administration.

In order to make a fair and objective comparison between violent crime during Biden’s administration and violent crime during Trump’s administration, we need to compare the first three years of the Biden administration (2021, 2022, and 2023) with the first three years of the Trump administration (2017, 2018, 2019).

When one uses the data from the FBI UCR reports and does the simple calculations required to determine the average rate of violent crime under Trump’s first three years and the average rate of violent crime under Biden’s first three years, it turns out that the violent crime rate was LOWER under Biden than it was under Trump:

Based on the FBI UCR data, the average rate of violent crime for the first three years of the Trump administration was: 373.6

Based on the FBI UCR data, the average rate of violent crime for the first three years of the Biden administration was: 372.8

The decrease in the average violent crime rate under Biden is small. However, it is clear that the average violent crime rate under Biden was LOWER than the average violent crime rate under Trump. Based on the FBI UCR data, the claim by Trump and Turley that there was a drastic increase in the rate of violent crime under the Biden administration is clearly a BIG LIE.

THE NCVS DATA SHOWS THAT THE VIOLENT CRIME RATE IS LOWER UNDER BIDEN THAN UNDER TRUMP

Another important source of information about violent crime in the United States is the National Crime Victimization Surveys (NCVS) that are conducted by the Department of Justice. There are annual NCVS reports on trends in crime, including violent crime.

Because it takes time to gather, organize, analyze, evaluate, and publish crime rates data in NCVS reports, and because the year 2024 is still in progress, we don’t have a complete picture of crime rates in 2024. We do have NCVS reports and data on crime for the first three years of Biden’s administration.

When one uses the data from the NCVS reports and does the simple calculations required to determine the average rate of violent crime under Trump’s first three years and the average rate of violent crime under Biden’s first three years, it turns out that the violent crime rate was LOWER under Biden than it was under Trump:

Based on the NCVS data from the DOJ, the average rate of violent crime for the first three years of the Trump administration was: 21.6

Based on the NCVS data from the DOJ, the average rate of violent crime for the first three years of the Biden administration was: 20.8

The decrease in the average violent crime rate under Biden is admittedly small. However, it is clear that the average violent crime rate under Biden was LOWER than the average violent crime rate under Trump. Based on the NCVS data from the DOJ, the claim by Trump and Turley that there was a drastic increase in the rate of violent crime under the Biden administration is clearly a BIG LIE.

It appears that Jonathan Turley has joined the sad club of Lawyers Opting to Lie for Donald Trump.

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SOURCES I USED FOR VIOLENT CRIME RATES DATA

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FBI UCR Violent Crime Data

Crime in the United States, 2019, Table 1:

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/table-1

UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation, 2022 (see page 9)

https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#

UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation, 2023 (see page 3)

https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#

NCVS Violent Crime Data