Hours after President Donald Trump tweeted crime in Germany is "way up" because Europe is "allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture," the German government provided Newsmax with figures sharply contradicting this claim.
The White House, however, would not respond Monday to figures in a report released last month by Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer concluding that overall crime in Germany had dropped 5.1 percent from 2017 to 2018 and the German crime rate was the lowest since 1992.
Citing this report, Newsmax asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders where the president got his claim German crime was "way up."
"I'm not aware of the report that you're referencing, but I'd be happy to check into it, and circle back to you," Sanders said at the daily press briefing.
When we repeated the report was from the German Interior Ministry, Sanders replied: "I heard that part, but I haven't seen it. But I'll be happy to check into it and circle back."
Officially entitled "Police Crime Statistics" and released by Seehofer's office May 8, 2018, the report shows, since 2017, a 2.4 percent drop in violent crime, an 11.8 percent drop in theft, and a 23 percent drop in burglaries.
Ironically, Seehofer, leader of the right-of-center Christian Social Union (CSU) in Merkel's ruling coalition, did not support the chancellor's policy of admitting more than one million asylum seekers into Germany since 2015.
On the same day his name and report came up at the White House, Seehofer was quoted about Chancellor Merkel in the leading German business magazine, Handelsblatt, where he said "he can't work with that woman anymore."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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