'This District Attorney That Refuses To Prosecute': Ben Cline Slams Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) spoke about rising crime rates in Philadelphia.
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NewsTranscript
00:00In particular, the Fitzgeralds and Mrs. O'Connor for being here.
00:04Your stories are tragic and we share your grief.
00:09I love the city of Philadelphia.
00:11I love to come here and visit.
00:13The history is amazing and my kids love it.
00:17We came up here and got to tour around.
00:20We tried to go to a pizza place up in Callow Hill,
00:25crossed under the convention center.
00:28That was a wrong turn because we saw some tragic individuals underneath that tunnel.
00:39We want to come back here.
00:41I told my kids I was coming up here for a hearing,
00:43and they looked and said, Daddy, don't go back to the convention center
00:47because they remember what they saw here.
00:50So there is greatness in your city, but there's also crisis in your city.
00:55And the crisis comes as a result of the budget that Mr. Biggs put in the record,
01:02which in 2021, I'm just going to read it,
01:05to address fiscal challenges and issues with equity in law enforcement,
01:08the Philadelphia Police Department's budget was reduced by $33 million.
01:12That had a real impact.
01:16When Chairman Jordan asked how short on officers are they, well, I got on Google,
01:21and it says in a force of 6,500 at the beginning of this year, they were short about 1,000.
01:26And over 100 retired on January 1st of this year.
01:32Over the next two years, another 600 are scheduled to retire.
01:36There is a crisis in confidence among law enforcement.
01:42And that is having a real impact on crime in Philadelphia.
01:47Over the last year, property crimes, including retail theft and carjackings,
01:52have risen by more than 15 percent.
01:54Retail theft has increased by almost 28 percent, while vehicle theft has skyrocketed by 72 percent.
02:00And that comes from this district attorney that refuses to prosecute.
02:06Mrs. O'Connor, I wanted to ask you in particular about when you mentioned in your testimony
02:13about the four men involved in your husband's shooting,
02:16at least two had prior convictions for violent crimes, including murder,
02:21and at least two had lenient sentences and were out on bail or parole.
02:26Can you just go into detail a little bit on that?
02:32And what that does to crime in the city.
02:35It's, again, I wish I had the time to go through and pull up all four of their prior arrests.
02:43It's, these guys were, there was one over 21, the rest were under 19, 18 years old.
02:51And just the amount of, I guess it starts with the gun charges that they were arrested for.
02:58And to be let out on that, well, why?
03:03You know, you commit a crime, you should be in jail, you should stay there.
03:07And to be let out, and then to find out, like I said, the main shooter,
03:12five names he wrote on that wall in the prison cell proudly, very proudly.
03:17I mean, 19 years old.
03:21It doesn't make any, at the time of the case, my daughter was 19.
03:24And I'm like, this woman's in the Air Force trying to get her life together and figure it out.
03:28Or she could have sat home and just shot people and sold drugs and, you know,
03:32and got away with it for how many years?
03:35This doesn't need to happen, and it's continuing to happen.
03:38And, you know, the low bail is what brings people out.
03:42This is why I said federally, thank God that this job is not in Larry Krasner's hands.
03:47I would totally believe that at least one to two, maybe three of them would be out by now.
03:53And it's very, it's just, and there's so much, the crime is just out of control.
03:58And I get really emotional talking about it because Jim should still be here.
04:02It is, and he should still be here.
04:04And, in fact, they're trying to take more away from Mr. Krasner.
04:08I'm noticing that the governor just signed Act 40 into law in the final months of last year
04:16to allow the state's attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor on any crime that occurs
04:23within 500 yards of a SEPTA property in Philadelphia.
04:28It allows the special prosecutor to intervene in all such cases through 2026,
04:32which is when Krasner's current term would end.
04:35So hopefully they're going to be able to take more away from Krasner
04:40so that he won't be able to dismiss and ignore the crimes that are occurring across this city.
04:49Mr. Pichetto, in my final seconds, I wanted to ask you about the attempted impeachment of Mr. Krasner.
04:59He was successfully impeached in the House, and then he sued to block it, the trial in the Senate.
05:08Is that correct?
05:09That is absolutely correct.
05:11And can you talk about the effort that you undertook and how it seems that it was thrown out by a single judge
05:25and what that does to Mr. Krasner's, I don't know, willingness, as it were.
05:34Is he just going to be encouraged by that to continue to try and ignore more crime in the city?
05:41I think he is.
05:42And, you know, it was even worse than that.
05:45What happened was in the September-October terms of the 2022 House Republicans impeached Larry Krasner.
06:00And just like in the federal model, in the state model here in Pennsylvania, from there it goes to a trial in the Senate.
06:08Unfortunately, the House changed control in the November 2022 elections,
06:18and they lost 13 sitting Republicans, converted to Democratic control.
06:27And as soon as that happened, they fired the House manager of the impeachment process who had engaged me.
06:37So we were essentially shut down by politics and never had the chance to really present the case to the Senate.
06:47And then, as you point out, thereafter, Mr. Krasner presented a petition to a Democratic judge who, in I believe a partisan way, interrupted the process.
07:04And the impeachment is now in mothballs.
07:08But, you know, I wish to point out one of the biggest issues in the Krasner impeachment has nothing to do with whether crime is rising or crime is going down or that type of thing.
07:24It's the manner in which he disregards victims of crime.
07:29Thank you.
07:30Victims have state and federal rights.
07:33And most recently, Larry Krasner was held in contempt of court in federal proceedings where he directly lied to the court about consulting with victim crime families in implementing reductions in sentences.
07:49It was a direct lie.
07:51He was called out on it.
07:52It was confirmed in the Third Circuit.
07:55It's an act of misconduct.
07:57Thank you.
07:58Thank you.
07:59The gentleman yields back.
08:00The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized.
08:02Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
08:04And I want to just thank all of the witnesses for being here.
08:08I was born in Philadelphia.
08:10My father, his entire family is from Philadelphia.