@Merge doing Yeoman's fact-checking work as usual. It should be noted also that the original report that kicked off these breathless stories on Fox News, NYP, and elsewhere online was from "RealClear Investigations," which doesn't bother to link to any reports on the FBI website. Which makes sense because as Merge noted above, the story is more nuanced, and the updated figures actually show an overall
decrease in total crime reporting in the two years combined (2021 and 2022) than what was previously reported.
The author of the piece is John Lott, a
documented liar and hyper-partisan who presents himself as a serious academic. He has some quotes in his article by Carl Moody, who Lott describes as a "professor at the College of William & Mary who specializes in studying crime." It's very interesting that Lott does not mention that he has
worked with Moody before. It sure seems like Lott is trying to pass Moody off as an independent academic instead of his buddy and collaborative research partner.
What is even the claim here? That the FBI is covering for Biden/Harris? The FBI Director is a Republican appointed by Trump! You don't think he'd blow the whistle if he got the slightest inkling that he was getting pressure to doctor the numbers?
I don't know if you saw this, but the September jobs report showed upward revisions for July and August. So this claim that they always revise the jobs numbers down after the fact is not true.
"The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised up by 55,000, from +89,000 to+144,000, and the change for August was revised up by 17,000, from +142,000 to +159,000. With theserevisions, employment in July and August combined is 72,000 higher than previously reported.(Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agenciessince the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.)"
