FBI director touts drops in violent crime and arrests during his tenure

The FBI director said the bureau has recorded a "twenty-point drop in the homicide rate" and that "45,000 violent offenders" were arrested last year, during brief remarks in the transcript.

In the transcript the director attributed a series of enforcement figures to his tenure: "2,450 criminal gangs disrupted" (a figure he described as a 322% increase from 2024), "6,900 child victims have been located" (a 144% increase) and "2,900 child predators and human traffickers arrested" (a 70% increase). He later said the bureau had arrested "eight of the top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives in the world in 14 months," which he characterized as "twice as many in the four years combined." The speaker framed these numbers as evidence that the FBI is "well resourced" and credited agency personnel.

The director also addressed critics, calling recent attacks "baseless, fraudulent, false personal attacks" and saying, "Keep the target on me, as I've always said. But the mission has never been better." All quoted language in this article is taken directly from the transcript and attributed to the Director.

The statistics and percentage changes were presented by the speaker and are reported here as his claims; the transcript does not provide supporting documents, baseline figures, dates for the comparisons, or independent verification. The transcript also does not specify when or where these remarks were made.

What happened next was not recorded in this excerpt: no follow-up questions, supporting evidence, or official citations were included in the provided transcript.