'We went and reconfigured the numbers': Leavitt admits manipulating DC crime stats

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt admitted Tuesday that crime statistics in Washington, D.C. had recently been "reconfigured" to support President Donald Trump's claims.

During a White House briefing, a reporter asked Leavitt to clarify what Trump meant when he vowed to rid Washington of "slums."

"First, when it comes to what you said, and the president said, the slums of Washington, D.C., he's referring to the most dangerous communities, neighborhoods, and streets in the city where unfortunately violence has ravaged these communities and taken the lives of, again, far too many law-abiding D.C. residents," the press secretary explained.

"There has been a surge, despite what many of you have been falsely reporting, and I believe it was The Washington Post who put out a map claiming it to be fact-based when it was just based on, I don't know, accounts that they've heard on the street, not actual statistics and data," she continued. "So we went and reconfigured the numbers, and as I said, half, nearly half of all the non-illegal alien-related arrests have occurred in wards seven and eight."

On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the Department of Justice had opened an investigation into Washington, D.C. police for allegedly manipulating crime data.

"D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety," Trump claimed in a post on Monday night.

Watch the video below from Fox News.