The latest FBI statistics point to a "historic" drop in crime in the first quarter of this year, Attorney General Merrick Garland says.

And this, after a year in which the murder rate fell at one the fastest rates ever recorded, a top criminologist added.

"This should be good news for everybody," criminologist Jeff Asher, who analyzed the FBI numbers, told NBC News. "But it's also early June and the trend of the nation's crime rate is always uncertain."

The first three months of 2024 saw a "historic" drop in rates of violent crime and murder across the country, according to newly released FBI statistics — but the numbers don't tell the whole story, some analysts say.

Data released by the FBI on Monday showed violent crime incidents dropped 15% between January and March this year compared to the same period in 2023.

Violent crime in the U.S. dropped by a significant amount in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the previous year, according to the FBI's Quarterly Uniform Crime Report.

Hunter Biden can and will only blame himself for his conviction for lying about drug addiction on a form to purchase a gun and then possessing the gun after lying to buy it. He is the one who abused crack cocaine, and he is the one who chose to purchase a gun.

But we have Attorney General Merrick Garland to thank for the fact the case was brought, and that it was tried in the politically explosive time of a presidential campaign, only a month before the start of the Republican convention and two months before the Democratic one.

Last month, House Republicans announced that they planned to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for his refusal to turn over audio files from interviews that Special Counsel Robert Hur conducted with President Joe Biden. While House leadership is looking to bring such a proposal for a vote on Wednesday, after it cleared the House Rules Committee on Tuesday, such a move may already be dead and may even be pulled.

Attorney General Merrick Garland made an impassioned plea Tuesday for an end to attacks on the Justice Department that he said have become routine and undermine democracy in the U.S.

Why it matters: Threats against the Justice Department and its employees have ramped up in recent weeks and the department is "under attack like never before," Garland wrote in a Tuesday Washington Post op-ed.

The big picture: The latest spate of attacks go beyond mere scrutiny or criticism and are "baseless, personal and dangerous," Garland wrote.

Hunter Biden can and will only blame himself for his conviction for lying about drug addiction on a form to purchase a gun and then possessing the gun after lying to buy it. He is the one who abused crack cocaine, and he is the one who chose to purchase a gun.

But we have Attorney General Merrick Garland to thank for the fact the case was brought, and that it was tried in the politically explosive time of a presidential campaign, only a month before the start of the Republican convention and two months before the Democratic one.

Hunter Biden has been found guilty on all three charges in his federal gun trial, becoming the first son of a sitting US president to be criminally convicted.

Prosecutors said Biden, 54, lied about his drug use on a federal form when he bought a handgun in 2018.

Biden pleaded not guilty, claiming he was in recovery from drug addiction at the time and therefore did not lie on the gun application form.

A panel of 12 Delaware jurors reached their verdict after about three hours of deliberations.

The most important moment in Hunter Biden’s criminal trial came not when the verdict found him guilty on three counts of lying on a federal firearms application, but in the previous week, when President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice admitted in court and under oath that the laptop linking Hunter Biden to payments from foreign governments was real.

Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy berated Attorney General Merrick Garland Tuesday over illegal immigrants allegedly murdering Americans under President Joe Biden’s administration.

The Department of Justice has filed lawsuits against three red states, including Texas, for enacting laws that empower police to enforce immigration rules. Roy asked Garland during a House Judiciary Committee hearing if Texas has a right to defend itself against illegal immigrants, especially in light of alleged murders committed by them, with the representative showing pictures of the victims.