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Aug. 21, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
29:16
Crime in D.C. and the Cover-Up - August 20th, Hour 3
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This is an iHeart podcast.
Coming up next, our final news roundup and information overload hour.
All right, news roundup and information overload hour.
Here's our toll-free telephone number if you want to be a part of the program.
By the way, Cash Patel, FBI director, saying 25 illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds were arrested Tuesday night in our nation's capital.
And he said today that his agency will continue to pour resources into combating crime in Washington, D.C. until every community is safe.
He posted on X: 550 people have been arrested in D.C. since Donald Trump moved to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department.
Of those arrests, 66 were on Tuesday.
Patel also said the FBI was involved in 41 of the arrests on Tuesday night with eight drug seizures, six illegal firearms that were recovered.
And he said the men and women in the FBI, working side by side with local law enforcement partners, have taken hundreds of dangerous criminals off the streets of D.C. and proof of what happens when good cops are empowered to do their jobs right away.
So they're not going to stop.
And the fact that Democrats want that to happen is inexplicable to me.
I played this earlier.
I'll play it again.
It's appropriate.
Robert Garcia, congressman from California, shocker, you know, would rather shut down the government than let Donald Trump fix Washington, D.C.
Now, keep in mind as you listen to this that if you look at the homicide rate for capital, for capital cities around the world, by far, America's capital city, Washington, D.C., is number one in terms of the homicide rate, and that is 41 per 100,000 people.
Crime, homelessness, lifestyle issues, quality of life issues are out of control.
And since President Trump has gotten involved, I gave you the statistics yesterday.
I won't repeat them.
Every crime category is down dramatically because of getting away from this idiotic defund, dismantle, no-bail law, and immigration, I'm sorry, and sanctuary city status mentality of the left.
So listen to this, Congressman.
But do you think that your colleagues in the Senate, Senate Democrats, should refuse to fund the government?
That deadline is coming up at the end of September.
Should they refuse to vote on these spending bills using that leverage until they see President Trump reverse deploying troops in the streets of D.C.?
Yes.
I mean, first, that should be on the table.
I don't think we should be ruling that out.
I think that Democrats in the Senate, the House, I mean, all of us should be united and using everything that we can do in all of our power to stop what Trump is doing right now, not just in D.C., but across the country.
So absolutely, that should be on the table.
Now, D.C. officials, thanks to our friends at the Washington Free Beacon, law enforcement officials in D.C.'s Democratic control city government are now facing allegations that they actually covered up multiple murders in a bid to make their city's staggering crime numbers look better.
Now, remember, we have the distinction.
Every country in the world, we have the number one homicide rate of any capital city around the world.
By the way, even Baghdad isn't as bad, and Mexico City isn't as bad.
I can go through all the different countries and 41 per 100,000.
And that's with doctored numbers and this massive manipulation of numbers.
Anyway, what we're discovering is a lawsuit filed by a veteran D.C. cop is citing four examples of obvious homicides that were classified as accidental or cause undetermined.
Now, I want to read to you, and we'll be joined in a minute by Anna Giratelli, and she's the Washington Examiner Homeland Security reporter.
She does a great job.
I want to read an article that she wrote.
I'm going to read part of it.
Five years ago, I was violently attacked and sexually assaulted in broad daylight in Washington, D.C. by a homeless man.
He served time in federal prison for what he did to me.
But if you look at, if you look for evidence of the attack that happened in the city's crime statistics, you will not find it.
The truth of what happened to me and the D.C. government's role in it as much as a public scandal as it is a personal trauma.
D.C. police covered up this unspeakable wrong that this stranger did to me.
Even though a judge sentenced my attacker to a hard time in prison, D.C. police leadership would rather deceive the public and appear less dangerous than list mine and countless other sexual assaults on their website.
Anna Giratelli joins us now.
First of all, I'm very sorry about what you have gone through.
You do a great job at the examiner, and we appreciate your time.
Sean, thank you so much for amplifying my story.
You know, it's interesting because the New York Post today, I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this story about this guy, William Hathaway, took a woman to a Soho house in New York City in the West Village, where he was convicted of rape, according to a Manhattan jury.
They found him guilty of rape.
But even though the prosecution asked for four years in prison, the judge led him off with probation and, quote, sex offender treatment.
I mean, for those people that have never been a victim of this kind of violent crime, I mean, I imagine it's the type of trauma that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
I can't imagine the horror that you live through.
It is.
It is.
And, you know, it's taken years of recovery.
It's been five years since it happened, and that's why it's taken me time to speak out now.
And, you know, I am a crime reporter.
I've been to the border over 60 times.
I work with the federal law enforcement every day.
And I had no idea how covered up crime is in D.C. until I became a victim and said, I have to speak out because no one's doing anything until now.
And you're right.
It's an incredibly personal thing.
And I don't hold it against other victims for not speaking out.
But I think if the Trump administration really wants to fix this problem, they need to know how deep it is.
And we don't even have accurate crime stats at this point to know how bad it is.
Let's go into your case.
I mean, to the extent you're comfortable, I don't want you to have to revisit the entire trauma, but just to paint the picture for this audience, what did you go through?
What happened?
What time of day was it?
And then the impact it had on your life.
And then the fact that D.C., you know, police and prosecutors, whoever's involved in this, are covering up the fact that your crime even ever took place.
Yeah, it was a Saturday in April 2020, Saturday morning, 9.30.
I lived right outside Union Station, a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
And I had a package I was going to mail at the post office on the other side of Union Station.
And I was walking down the street.
Other people were out.
And a stranger, a large man, came at me and lunged at me.
And in the process of trying to take me down, he actually assaulted me.
I was screaming for help.
He was screaming on top of me.
It was very, you know, you don't know what's going on, very chaotic.
And someone did come initially run over, and others came and helped me.
He got away that day, but police got DNA for my clothing.
And two months later, told me there's been a match.
He has a criminal history.
He's homeless.
He lives close to your apartment building on 2nd Street Northeast.
And they arrested him a month later.
The judge ordered him released the following day.
And in the nearly two years it took us to go to trial, he was arrested five more times, including for having a machete in public, and was released from jail all five times the following day after his arrest.
And so I think you're describing madness.
I've got to imagine that has got to be infuriating for you.
It was infuriating.
And, you know, after that type of crime, you're not in your right mind.
It was COVID in D.C. was nuts because we were all locked in.
I lived by myself on the sixth floor of a building.
I saw no one every day and trying to overcome that and then understand at the same time that your city is gaslighting you.
It's not a big deal.
We're going to try him by the feds.
You know, it's a big deal, but it's also not a big deal.
And at the end of the day, saying, I can't, you know, rely on the city to have my back.
I felt physically unsafe, but I felt so let down by the city I love.
My career is in D.C. I'm in politics and media.
There's no other place to do that.
And so I left with nowhere to go because I didn't feel like I had a choice.
All right, quick break.
We'll come right back more with Anna Giratelli.
She is the Washington Examiner Homeland Security reporter, a victim of a sexual assault herself.
And of course, they're not keeping track of it.
And D.C. is now being faced with allegations that they're covering up major, major crimes to lower their crime statistics.
We'll continue with Anna on the other side, and then we'll get to your calls, 800-941-Sean, as we continue.
Can we continue?
Washington Examiner, Homeland Security reporter, Anna Giratelli is with us.
Let's talk about when you discovered that DC and the government there, that they are purposefully not reporting sexual assaults like yours on their website, and they're doctoring the numbers because this now is coming into the forefront.
Yeah, and that article you mentioned, I mean, that's just the tip of the iceberg for how deep it is.
And what I uncovered in 2020 after the attack, I was writing a story on violent crime.
I, you know, trying to get back to work myself, despite what I've been through.
And I noticed on the crime map at the time, they used to put pins on the map for exactly where a crime had occurred.
And I noticed there was no pin on the map where my, what was a sex abuse crime had occurred.
And when I spoke with the police, they said, we're only posting first degree felonies on our public facing crime map.
And my charge was not a first-degree sex crime.
It was a lower degree.
And so for the next five years, that, I mean, that set the tone for you don't matter.
You know, what you went through, it was incredibly invalidating to me.
And then last week, I reached back out to the police to double check and see where things stand now.
What are they putting on that crime map?
They're no longer using pins.
They're being less specific and color coding regions and neighborhoods in certain colors and not giving a detailed breakdown.
And they said to me, for sex abuse crimes, we're only placing first degree and some second degree crimes on the map.
And so first degree is rape.
Second degree, some of those are attempted rape crimes.
In this case, I wasn't one of those charges.
I was a different charge or different degree.
And so they said, no, your charge is not on here.
And I said, he went to federal prison.
Don't you think he should be listed?
And they didn't respond.
So that's where we stand today.
This guy is a repeat offender and you have the typical, you know, defund, dismantle, no bail law mentality in D.C., like New York, like places in California, for example.
How long did this guy go to jail for the crime against you?
Well, I found out at sentencing that he had attempted to hurt, if not kill, an off-duty female police officer in the same area neighborhood just a few weeks earlier.
And so that sentence was combined with mine and with the five other arrests that were pledged down to misdemeanors.
And he did around two years in prison for everything combined.
And he's been released since then.
And I hope he's not living five blocks from your house like you found out months after the assault took place.
No, you know, I chose to leave D.C. and I haven't returned.
I don't feel safe.
And, you know, it's a really painful experience to know what could happen.
And, you know, I hope everyone there, no one should be a victim of crime, regardless of party belief.
I think you and I both agree with that.
And, you know, I hope.
Anybody with a brain agrees with that?
Anybody.
Exactly.
You know, I mean, look at this story.
I mean, it's the front page of the New York Post today.
I don't know if you get a hard copy wherever you're living.
I won't even ask you because I don't want you to disclose it.
But here's a 33-year-old guy, took a woman to Toho House, then to his West Village home, was found guilty, according to a Manhattan jury, of rape, and even the prosecution in New York asking for four years in prison.
The judge lets him off with probation and, quote, sex offender treatment.
I mean, I don't know.
I don't know the mindset or the mentality that would ever let somebody convicted of this crime out on the street and not throw the book at them.
Well, I don't know if this is the right decision or not, the judge said in this case.
The right decision was to prevent future potential crimes here and other victims from this guy.
That's the purpose and to punish people for their crime.
I can't imagine how the victim feels.
It's doubly as painful to be physically, sexually hurt, and then to have this happen, to see the people who uphold the law feel like they're not offending you, feel like they're doing more for the criminal.
And, you know, I hope the Trump administration looks into not only the judges deciding cases in D.C., but also looks at how bad is the crime situation.
You know, this is my story, but how many other sex abuse victims and victims of other lesser degree felonies are out there who don't even know they're not counted in the crime stats for D.C. police?
Well, Anna Giratelli, I'm so sorry that you had to go through this, live through this.
You still live with it today.
Everyone can completely understand that.
I applaud you for speaking out and giving this the proper attention that it deserves.
Hopefully that will wake people up and we'll start punishing people for the crimes that they commit, especially violent sexual crimes like you had to experience yourself.
And I'm so sorry that happened to you.
And our prayers are with you.
Thank you so much, Sean.
800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, quick break, right back.
We'll get to your calls, 800-941-SHAWN, as we continue today.
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All right, let's get to our busy phones.
Jeff is in Virginia.
Jeff, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Hey, Sean.
Thanks.
Thanks for having me on.
What's going on?
So you're going to talk about some of the topics you were speaking about earlier with Ukraine and Russia.
First off, on the previous caller, Dan, was talking about the languages.
Neither one of them is going to have any problem whatsoever discussing things in English or in Russian, although they are, you are correct.
Russian and Ukrainian are different languages.
Thanks to Katie.
She did a great job, you know, all this call screening stuff.
And then last on the prelude here, next time you're in Alaska, you got to try moose.
Moose steaks.
I thought I did a good job trying reindeer.
That was a big step for me.
And I had reindeer sausage, and a guy gave it to me at a local breakfast place, and I'm like, tastes like regular sausage.
It tastes like a pork sausage to me.
Yeah, it is really good.
Moose is like the best roast I've ever had.
No fat whatsoever.
I think I'm going to get more brave in my as long as it's cooked.
I don't really care.
Why shouldn't I try everything?
What's the big deal?
Okay.
Down to the topic there of Russia-Ukraine.
I mean, from my perspective, and again, I'm a retired Marine.
I was an international relations guy, foreign area officer, studied that part of the world a bit.
Putin he wants it all, but what he really wants is better, warm, and deepwater ports.
He got those 10 plus years ago with the Crimea.
But he also is quite interested in all the resources.
That's a super resource-rich environment there on the eastern side of Ukraine.
Lots of coal and gas and salt and minerals and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, I think it's coming down to the Donesk region.
If, in fact, they both want a deal.
At the end of the day, there's only so much Donald Trump can do.
It's going to be decided by Putin and Zelensky.
Europe will play some part in the decision, but really it's going to be Putin.
It's going to be Zelensky.
Either one of them can blow up the deal at any time that they want.
And if they do, I mean, that's on them at that point.
They're given an opportunity here to stop the killing and stop the madness.
And if they choose not to do it, there's nothing anybody can do at that point to stop them.
Right.
I agree.
From Zelensky's point of view, I mean, his dream state would be the borders, reset that 12, 14 years ago and give me security guarantees.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm not saying what I want.
If you go back to when Clinton convinced the Ukrainians to give up their nuclear weapons, that was the biggest mistake Ukraine ever made.
All of these countries gave security guarantees to Ukraine.
So what happened in Crimea in 2014 would never happen.
What happened under Biden would never happen.
And guess what?
It all happened.
And the lesson to be learned here is if you have nukes, don't give them up.
And if you're a country like Iran and the number one state sponsor of terror for the rest of the free world, don't let them have them.
That's my advice.
Man, I think that's the biggest lesson here.
Anyway, my friend, I appreciate it, Jeff.
God bless you, man.
Back to our phones.
Don is in the great state of Iowa.
Don, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Hi, Sean.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm actually truck driving through Texas right now coming up on Katie's neck of the woods.
Why is everybody sucking up to Katie today?
Everyone's sucking up to Katie.
Anyway, God bless you for being a truck driver.
I say this every time, and I mean it sincerely.
The part that you play in America's food chain, and every store we go to, every item that's in there, is because of a trucker like you.
Thank you for your hard work every day.
It's not an easy job, it's a tough job.
Thank you, Sean.
I appreciate that.
I called because of what's going on with Newsom in particular.
He ceases really being a nuisance and the crime in DC and Trump trying to put an end to all the crime, either via illegal alien or legal U.S. citizens.
He's trying to put a stop to as much of it as he can.
And that goes for in Ukraine and Russia right now.
I mean, the man is amazing.
And it's just fascinating.
Listen, the guy's trying everything he can do.
I mean, he's had great success worldwide.
I think this is going to be the toughest peace deal to pull off because of the people that we're involved with and dealing with, and the tensions are that high.
But with that said, I'll take any progress.
I don't think any other world leader who could have gotten Putin to sit down.
I don't think any other world leader would motivate Europe a day later to mobilize and come to the White House and Zelensky to go to the White House.
And he's working really hard on it.
But at the end of the day, there's only so much of this heavy lifting that he can do.
At the end of the day, it's going to be on them to decide.
So we'll see what they do.
I'm hoping for peace.
I mean, I'd like to see an end to the killing.
You know, both sides are, you know, kind of dug in.
And I hope both sides see it's in their best interest to come to a negotiated settlement.
And there's not going to be a perfect negotiated settlement.
There just isn't.
And I don't, I can tell you ahead of time, whatever it is, I'm not going to like it.
But I would like to see an end to the killing.
I mean, you had an apartment complex attack with multiple drone strikes last night by Putin in Ukraine.
And, you know, it's sad.
There's a lot of dying going on.
Anyway, Lorenzo, how are you?
I did notice in Boston, Lorenzo.
I did notice that your mayor had a very bizarre press conference yesterday.
I think we've got the tape of this, and I'm going to play it for everybody.
This is your mayor and her press conference.
Sonto vamente agenas, a los redentes que biben en nuestor ciudades.
Y estamos recogiendo, los restos de sus fracasos en el complimiento de sus promesas.
This has always been a city of revolution, of innovation, of standing up for the public good, and never bowing down to tyranny.
That is your mayor, Michelle Wu, hosting a Mirachi band speaking Spanish as she refuses to back down from Boston's sanctuary status.
I'm sure you're very proud, Lorenzo.
I don't even want to comment on that, Sean.
Unbelievable.
It's unbelievable.
But what I would like to say is you were right on the way you handle some of the callers.
And yesterday you had a call that I was like saying, oh, let Russia and Ukraine fight.
I'm a junior carpenter, just like you were, Sean.
You were a 94 guy, right?
I was a 67 guy before we had the merger.
But I work with Russian guys, Ukrainian guys.
You know, some of the guys are even married.
Well, one particular guy is a Ukrainian guy married to a Russian girl.
That whole area.
And all they tell us is they want the fighting stopped.
That both the Russian guys and the Ukrainian guys, they want the fighting stop.
So what Trump has done Friday, what he's done Monday is unbelievable.
And I get mad when these people in the media try to attack him.
And you stuck up for him.
He has your back.
Trump has your back like none.
And I'm glad you used the platform to fight for him, Sean.
Well, I think he's doing the right thing.
He's had great success around the world.
He is showing what America's strength looks like.
Only he and a strong president could pull this off to this point.
He can't force people to do things.
But in the end, if let's say Vladimir Putin decides he wants the war to continue and the death to continue, I do believe President Trump, when Donald Trump says that the consequences will be dire and he puts in place a deal where a trillion dollars in energy that would normally be used to purchase Russian oil will now be used to purchase American oil.
And when Donald Trump steps in and he puts a 50% tariff on India if they keep importing Russian oil, that is the heart and soul of Russia's economy.
He will bleed them dry.
That's why you have this article out today about the reformers in Iran begging the Iranian mullahs to stop pursuing nuclear weapons to get the sanctions dropped so that they can, you know, once again bring financial stability to their country.
Otherwise, they ultimately will be overthrown.
Had Donald Trump had two consecutive terms, the Iranian mullahs would have already been overthrown because they would have been bankrupt and people would have been rising up against them, including their own Revolutionary Guard and Quds forces.
That's my opinion.
I agree.
I agree.
Sean, here's the other thing, too.
You know, the president, he always talking about, you know, the election and how you can't have the mail-in ballots and all this stuff.
And I remember when the election, you know, you said you had it.
You know, you said we had to do what they had to.
You had to do the ballot harvesting.
I know you don't want that, Sean.
I know you want just like same-day voting in person.
And I hope that, you know, paper ballots.
I hope you drive that home with your platform.
And I got one more thing.
I'm going to listen to you, Sean.
Sometime I'm going to tell you a story of how good Trump is and how smart he is to do with the construction and, you know, Copenhagen's union and everything like that.
How he was going to buy a company and he decided to walk away because there was so much corruption and politicians being, someday I'll tell you that story next time we talk.
If you read the art of the deal, Trump says in that book that if you're doing any deal, you got to be willing to walk away up to the last second.
And I use that as a business model myself.
I'm willing to walk away from any deal.
You have to.
Otherwise, you're willing to sign on to a bad deal.
Anyway, God bless your hard work and all my best to my fellow construction workers.
The work you do every day is vital.
By the way, I love that our article I keep referring to, the next generation of millionaires is going to be tradespeople.
You can't replace them with artificial intelligence, although you are seeing robotics that are able to do roofing, and you are seeing robotics now developing that they're able to do some framing.
However, you're still going to need craftsmen.
I don't see AI replacing all of that by any stretch.
Joe in Arkansas, next Sean Hannity Show.
What's up, Joe?
How are you?
I'm doing good.
What's going on?
I'm doing good, Sean.
I feel like that worker At the pilot school, I thought it odd that all the Middle Eastern students skipped landing day and didn't wasn't able to tell anybody what was going on.
I remember that.
I remember that came out after the fact.
Yeah.
You're talking about the 9-11 hijackers.
I'm talking about, I'm a trucker, and I drive all over the United States and Canada on a regular basis.
Things have changed in the last few years that are very scary since then.
Well, I mean, we learned that, for example, this guy involved in the killing of these three people in Florida, making an illegal U-turn.
We got an update today that he didn't have the ability to read English street signs.
That's number one.
Number two, we know that he came in through the sanctuary state of California where he got his commercial driver's license, and he was denied a work permit in Trump's first term, and it was Joe Biden that gave it to him.
And, you know, look at the disaster.
There's untold numbers of people that have died.
You know what pisses me off, too?
I'm going to tell you one other thing.
A sanctuary state like California, we have tried to find them.
They don't exist.
They don't keep crime statistics for illegal immigrants.
They don't do it on purpose.
And we don't know how many people may have been murdered and raped and victims of violent crime because they don't want us to know.
With that said, we're sometimes able to piece together a list of names.
And trust me, I'm very prepared when this, you know, for the next presidential election, if Gavin Newsom thinks he can run away from his record, good luck on that.
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