Latest news with #Edward Coristine
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
How Washington turned into a violent drug-infested swamp with crack addicts in sight of the White House
It was the crime that finally shamed the nation's capital. On August 3, Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old Elon Musk protégé, was attacked on the street and left battered and bleeding. A week later, at the intersection where it happened, the scene remains just the kind that that President Trump wants to eradicate by sending in 800 National Guard troops to end 'bloodshed, bedlam and squalor'. Close to where Coristine - nicknamed 'Big Balls' - was brutally assaulted, the front window of a Post Office is covered in graffiti, and so are the walls of other buildings. Cans, pizza boxes and detritus litter the streets while garbage cans overflow. Homes have bars on the windows and security alarm signs planted prominently outside, along with guard dog warnings in English and Spanish. According to local residents, things have got worse since the pandemic. 'What I see are more homeless people suffering from addiction and severe mental health issues,' said one woman. In another hangover from the pandemic, criminals are now wearing Covid-era medical masks to disguise themselves as they launch late-night attacks and carjackings. In the surveillance footage police released in the Coristine case, a suspect is wearing one. Meanwhile, Washington's mayor, Muriel Bowser, has argued that there is no crimewave in the city. After Trump adviser Stephen Miller suggested the murder rate was worse than Iraqui capital Baghdad, Bowser said that was 'hyperbolic and false'. She accepted there was a spike in 2023 but said there was a significant drop after that, with violent crime currently down 26 percent compared to last year. However, what Bowser didn't say is that the sense of spiraling crime in the city comes partly from where it is happening - in central areas, including close to the White House, rather than long-blighted outlying zones. The attack on Coristine happened in an trendy enclave popular with young Republican and Democrat staffers, just a mile north of the White House. A few minutes down the road, in early July, congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, 21, was shot dead. That fatal shooting happened in a seemingly quiet residential neighborhood at 10:30pm It began with an altercation between two groups that escalated into gunfire near a block of apartments, an underground station and a Metro outlet, according to police reports. Eric's mother, Tamara Jachym, accused the city's council of treating violent crime like a 'joke'. 'Your constituents are dying. They're getting killed and maimed. This isn't OK,' she appealed to municipal authorities. She called on the council to lean on the federal government for help. Near the White House itself, it is common for people to take crack cocaine or relieve themselves in little-patrolled alleyways. One homeless man on a street corner, within sight of the White House, told the Daily Mail the crime he was witnessing at night was 'getting worse', including a recent incident involving a man with a rifle. When told the president was sending in the National Guard, the man said he may head for Nevada. Meanwhile, the brazenness of car break-ins is now so bad one Washington restaurant worker left a note in their window pleading for criminals to leave them alone, following four previous attacks. It read: 'There is nothing of value in this car. Only restaurant supplies and broken dreams.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pirro on ‘Big Balls' attack: ‘We've got to lower the age of responsibility to 14'
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Wednesday that the age of legal accountability in Washington, D.C., should be lowered to 14 in light of the recent assault of former Department of Government Efficiency worker Edward 'Big Balls' Coristine. 'The D.C. Council, and the president is right, they have got to stop their coddling. Number one, we've got to lower the age of responsibility to 14. I'm tired of having these kids commit crimes — and they are crews, not gangs, in D.C.,' Pirro said during her appearance on Fox News's 'The Ingraham Angle.' 'We've got an intern, you said it in your open, an intern from college, he gets shot going out for McDonald's at 10:30 at night. This kid is trying to help his girlfriend or his friend to a car. He gets assaulted and, but for a cop going by, they would have — had they gotten him on the ground, they would have stomped him and finished him,' Pirro told host Laura Ingraham. 'He was able to stay standing. This has to end.' Coristine was beaten up by as many as 10 teens during an attempted carjacking near the White House on Sunday, according to law enforcement. Two 15-year-olds have been charged with unarmed carjacking. Pirro, who was confirmed to her post by the Senate last week, said she is supportive of President Trump's push to federalize the nation's capital and argued that violent youth are 'coddled' in Democrat-run cities. 'Youth violence is on the rise, not just in D.C., but across the country. And if you think that these kids need to be coddled, and they need to be hugged — they need to have consequences,' Pirro said on Fox News, where she was previously a cohost. 'They need to understand that enough is enough, that we're going to put them in jail or some kind of youth rehabilitation detention facility, and not allow the D.C. Council, one of whom I just recently indicted, to take cover for these kids.' 'Here's the thing: D.C. is the nation's capital. People come here for pride and patriotism, not to get assaulted, carjacked or shot, get caught in a crossfire,' she said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
DOGE staffer nicknamed 'Big Balls' leaves White House cost-cutting staff
WASHINGTON – One of the best-known members of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency has left his federal job, part of an exodus following the acrimonious departure of billionaire adviser Elon Musk. Edward Coristine's online nickname 'big balls' drew the spotlight as part of the DOGE advisory group searching for government savings through dismantling agencies and laying off tens of thousands of government workers. Coristine, 19, had worked at Musk's company Neuralink before joining him at DOGE. He and others including Steve Davis, a key Musk aide who ran DOGE's day-to-day operations, have left the government, according to a White House official. In March, Reuters reported that Coristine had provided tech support to a cybercrime gang that had bragged about trafficking in stolen data and harassing an FBI agent. The DOGE departures came after Musk's split with Trump over government spending. Musk had initially aimed to cut $2 trillion in federal spending but DOGE recommendations resulted in about $150 billion in cuts that lawmakers are now debating whether to make permanent. Musk, who served in a special White House post that ended May 30, became sharply critical of Trump's package of legislative priorities that congressional agencies have said will raise deficit spending and the national debt. Musk has since said he "went too far" in criticism that included calling the legislative package an abomination and suggesting that Trump was mentioned in secret criminal files of the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The White House has denied Trump was associated with Epstein. Trump and officials such as Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, who has taken over leadership of DOGE, have argued the tax-and-spending package the Senate is debating this week won't add to the debt because of anticipated economic growth. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DOGE staffer with online moniker 'Big Balls' quits White House
