House Republicans are demanding the U.S. Attorney for D.C., who prosecutes most violent crime in the city, testify at a congressional hearing later this month on rising crime and recent data showing the federal office has declined to prosecute a majority of cases brought to it by D.C. police.

In a letter sent on Thursday, Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Accountability, asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to reconsider the decision not to allow U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves to testify at a planned May 16 hearing on crime in the District. Comer said that if the decision isn’t reversed, he would consider subpoenaing Graves.

“The District of Columbia is a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. Unlike other U.S. Attorneys, Mr. Graves is the only U.S. Attorney who serves as both the local and federal prosecutor for his area of responsibility. Mr. Graves’ unique role makes his testimony necessary to conduct meaningful oversight of the city, including and especially issues regarding crime,” wrote Comer in his letter. “As crime continues to spike throughout the District, Mr. Graves must be made available to provide critical information to committee members and to inform potential legislation to remedy this troubling trend.”

The planned hearing — which will feature Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee — follows a late-March hearing where House Republicans hammered D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) over rising crime in the city, accusing them of cutting funding from the Metropolitan Police Department and creating an inhospitable climate for officers, leading to a significant loss of police officers over the last three years.

But both lawmakers responded that the situation with crime is more complicated than just policing or policies; Allen pointed out that much of the city’s criminal justice, from the prosecutor to the courts, are federally run.

“It’s also our reality that meaningful progress is confounded by the absurdity of the District’s criminal justice system — which is within Congress’s power to remedy. You couldn’t have designed a more complicated and unsafe system if you tried,” he said. “For example, we have a local police department, but almost all adult crimes are prosecuted by the federally appointed U.S. Attorney. This position is unaccountable to D.C. residents. We can’t control whether an arrest is papered or tried in court — frankly, we aren’t even respected enough to be told the outcome of a case on our block.”

Those comments came on the same day The Washington Post published a story on the fact that the U.S. Attorney for D.C. has declined to prosecute two-thirds of cases brought by D.C. police. But Patricia Hartman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office, said in an email that it prosecutes a much higher proportion of homicides and other violent crimes, but has faced challenges going after other offenses because of factors it says it does not control.

“Our office prosecutes violent crime, including gun violence, as aggressively as we ever have, charging over 90% of our most violent felonies, and prosecuting every firearms offense we believe we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. With firearms offenses and non-violent felonies, our ability to prosecute has been hampered by recent changes in the law and the shutdown of the city’s forensics lab,” she said, referring to the D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences, which has been mired in controversy and lost its accreditation in 2021. (It is not expected to regain it until 2024, and in the meantime Bowser is trying to transfer evidence-collection responsibilities to MPD.)

Separately, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, which oversees the U.S. Attorney’s office, said that even without Graves testifying at the hearing, it would work with Republicans to answer their questions about criminal prosecutions in D.C. “From the beginning, the department has been clear we are committed to providing information to the committee for its hearing. We offered to brief them in person to answer their questions and offered to provide written testimony. We will be responding to the committee’s letter and remain committed to continued discussions,” wrote the spokesperson in an email.

The dustup over the upcoming hearing comes amidst broader debates and discussions over public safety in D.C., along with coming changes at the highest rungs of the police department. Contee, who served in the department for three decades and became chief just over two years ago, recently announced that he will retire in early June and join the FBI as an assistant director. Before that happens, though, he will join Bowser and multiple other law enforcement and government agencies next week at a public safety summit, and later at the congressional hearing. Bowser has also said she will soon unveil legislation to address gaps in the law, potentially around juvenile justice and pre-trial release and supervision.

Separately, a Republican-led effort to overturn a D.C. police reform and accountability bill has just fallen short. The House voted to block the bill — which imposed new disciplinary reforms on the police department — last month, but the Senate has not followed suit. (The deadline for the chamber to act is May 8, but senators are not expected back in session until the next day.) The D.C. Police Union argued that the bill had led to the current staffing challenges in the department, but others countered that hiring and retention has been an issue in police agencies across the country.