Under Assault

In this powerful memoir, Anna says what too many women never get to say: this happened, it mattered, and it cannot be ignored. 

A crime reporter covering the nation's most powerful institutions, Anna Giaritelli had moved to Washington, D.C. with the dream of making it. There she had built her career investigating federal law enforcement, border security, and the machinery of government that most Americans never see up close. Through the years, the city became her home. Then, on an ordinary Saturday morning in April 2020, everything changed.

Walking to the post office a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol, Anna was attacked in broad daylight, physically and sexually assaulted on a public sidewalk while strangers looked on. She survived. Her attacker fled the scene before anyone could stop him. 

What followed would test her in ways she never imagined: a years-long legal ordeal, a system that kept releasing her assailant back onto the streets, and the stunning discovery that D.C. police had simply erased her assault from their public crime statistics, as if it had never happened.

Under Assault is Anna's unflinching account of what it means to be victimized twice: first by her attacker, then by the city she loved. It is also something more-a story of hard-won healing, of a reporter who turned her most personal trauma into her most important story, and of the courage it takes to speak when powerful institutions want you silent.

Anna Giaritelli is an award-winning journalist. She joined the Washington Examiner in 2015 and covers homeland security. She has reported from the border on more than 60 trips and was a finalist for the 2024 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism for her coverage of the border crisis. Giaritelli has appeared on Fox News, BBC, Newsmax, The Times, C-SPAN, Sky News, Live Now from FOX, and syndicated Sirius XM and iHeartRadio programs. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Asbury University in 2011. She is based in Georgia.