FBI Mishandled Investigating Congressional Baseball Shooting, House Committee Finds

Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times,

A House Intelligence Committee report released on May 6 says that the FBI mishandled its investigation of the 2017 shooting at a GOP practice one day before the annual Congressional Baseball Game—including not calling the incident domestic terrorism and not interviewing key figures.

The committee’s chairman, Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), accused the FBI of holding up the report.

“There’s no reasonable or acceptable explanation for why the FBI stonewalled the committee for so long,” he said during a press conference.

“In fact, it’s taken so long to get this case file, many of those members at the field on that fateful day are no longer in Congress.”

The report found that the FBI did not thoroughly interview victims and eyewitnesses to the shooting, where House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and four others were shot.

Scalise was shot in the hip and seriously wounded, requiring several surgeries and a lengthy recovery.

Former Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) was not interviewed despite being at the scene during the shooting.

The shooter, James Hodgkinson, was shot and killed by Capitol Police, who were already on the scene due to Scalise’s presence as he was a member of House GOP leadership and therefore afforded a security detail.

The report also found that the bureau did not come up with a timeline of events surrounding the shooting.

The report attempted to dispute the FBI’s claim that the shooting was not connected to domestic terrorism.

In a press release following the shooting, the FBI said it “does not believe there is a nexus to terrorism.”

The Intelligence Committee report criticized the press release, saying it failed to include information that would have contradicted what the report called the FBI’s “suicide by cop” narrative.

“To commit suicide by cop, the perpetrator needs to demonstrate hostile intent in the presence of police. In this case, there were no observable police officers present,” the report said, noting that the officers were dressed in plain clothes.

The report said that the FBI’s “conclusions failed to follow the facts, as it reached an unsupported conclusion without completing even the most basic of investigative activities.”

The report said that while the FBI cited that Hodgkinson’s brother believed that the aim of the shooting was for Hodgkinson to die by suicide by cop, this was merely the brother’s opinion and not based on any communications.

Scalise was made aware of the report by the committee, according to Crawford, who declined to elaborate as he did not want to speak on Scalise’s behalf.

In a statement to The Epoch Times, the FBI said it “is committed to working quickly and transparently with Capitol Hill to ensure the American people receive the full truth they deserve.”

“We have diligently delivered all requested documents and will continue to cooperate fully with Congress to uphold transparency and accountability,” the bureau said.