Breaking: FBI Botched Congressional Baseball Shooting Probe, Dismissed Shooter’s Anti-GOP Terror Motive, House Report Finds

The FBI failed to perform a thorough investigation into the 2017 Congressional baseball practice shooting, according to a new House report which condemns the bureau for hastily announcing to the public that shooter was not a domestic terrorist despite substantial evidence that he was motivated by a desire to kill Republican lawmakers.

A week after the shooting, the FBI used false statements and misrepresentations to dismiss the possibility that gunman James Hodgkinson committed an act of domestic terrorism, according to the House Intelligence Committee report, released Tuesday.

“The FBI case file makes clear this case was a premeditated assassination attempt on Republican congressmen by a radical, left-wing political extremist, who was seeking to affect the conduct of our government,” the report reads.

FBI Director Kash Patel worked with the committee to disclose the case file after years of obstruction under the previous FBI regime. The committee received 2,500 pages from the FBI in March and another 1,900 in April in order to compile its report. The FBI told the committee those files make up all of the case file records.

The FBI issued a press release on June 21, 2017, just one week after the shooting, with its initial findings, including a determination that the bureau “does not believe there is a nexus to terrorism.” The conclusion was based on “information and evidence gathered in ongoing interviews, searches, and other investigative activity,” the FBI said in the release.

The House Intelligence report details the exhaustive evidence indicating that Hodgkinson had terrororistic motivations for carrying out the attack and was not simply seeking to perform suicide by cop, as the bureau claimed.

The shooter began firing at his targets without uniformed police officers in sight rather than choosing a location with an obvious police presence. He fired at lawmakers from a storage building, seemingly to protect himself from return fire. Moreover, the night before, Hodgkinson Googled directions back home and texted his wife that he would be returning.

“After all, chronologically, Hodgkinson was upset with President Trump's election, took a concealed carry firearms class, told friends and family they may not see him again, left his wife in Illinois, drove with his firearms to Washington, D.C. ‘to protest,’ cased the Eugene Simpsons Park baseball field for two months, and then confirmed the presence of Republican congressmen before using his firearms to shoot more than 70 rounds at Republican congressmen and staff,” the report reads.

The FBI also failed to disclose the political writings found in Hodgkinson’s possession, which referenced the need to “win back the power of the people” and acknowledged dramatic changes to the political landscape over the past 35 years.

Furthermore, the report notes that domestic terrorism and suicide by cop are not mutually exclusive characterizations of violent attacks, as shown by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and other acts of terrorism perpetrated by Islamic extremists. The FBI does not have a specific definition for suicide by cop, but nonetheless the committee disputes the FBI’s conclusion.

In addition to the bureau’s misrepresentation of Hodgkinson’s motive, agents on the case also failed to take basic investigative steps, according to the report.

The bureau failed to “substantively” interview congressional lawmakers present at the baseball practice and records indicate that there were no follow up interviews conducted with the victims and witnesses who were interviewed initially.

Former Representative Mo Brooks (R., Ala.) was not interviewed at all despite the fact that he was present at the shooting and included on a list of targeted lawmakers found in Hodgkinson’s possession. Brooks even received a medal from the Capitol Police for exhibiting bravery during the shooting.

Likewise, the FBI case file does not have a timeline of events or a description of Hodgkinson’s route on the morning of the shooting.

The Intelligence Committee found that the FBI sought to reinforce its initial narrative about Hodgkinson’s attack, despite the abundance of evidence in the case file showing otherwise. The FBI only changed course four years later, with a statement to the House Appropriations Committee for a hearing on violent extremism and domestic terrorism, the report observes.