Baseball shooting report “butchered” by FBI

Remember the baseball field shooting in 2017 in which a bunch of GOP legislators were playing a softball game and a fella opened fire on them? James T. Hodginson was killed at the scene.

The House Judiciary Committee, Intelligence Committee and Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigation released their opinion of the FBI investigation into it…and it ain’t pretty.

“This is the same FBI that can’t tell us who planted the pipe bomb [on Jan. 6, 2021], who can’t tell us who leaked the Dobbs opinion and who can tell us who put cocaine at the White House,” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) chided Tuesday morning.

Same FBI, but most of the incidents they cite were under Biden – the baseball shooting was during Trump’s first term. Irrelevant, though- read on.

Shortly afterHodgkinson’s June 14, 2017, attack on a Republican practice session for the congressional baseball game in suburban Alexandria, Va., the FBI wrote up an executive intelligence briefing that concluded he wanted to commit “suicide by cop.”

But then we get to the Biden-era FBI we know and love:

Four years later, in 2021, the FBI abruptly changed its determination — without new evidence, according to Tuesday’s report — to conclude that Hodgkinson’s attack was actually motivated by domestic violent extremism.

“The FBI then spent the next four years privately guarding the basis for its determinations by impeding Congressional oversight,” the report assessed. “It was not until the FBI was investigating January 6 protesters and the application of Congressional pressure that the FBI changed course.”

“The FBI used false statements, manipulation of known facts, and biased and butchered analysis to support a narrative that Hodgkinson committed suicide by cop without any nexus to domestic terrorism.”

But congressional investigators have since found evidence that the bureau concealed information from the public that would have undermined its initial “suicide by cop” conclusion.

That suppressed evidence includes key details about a handwritten note found on Hodgkinson that listed several Republicans as targets.

At the time, the FBI said it found a sheet of paper that had names of six members of Congress, but did not elaborate.

GOP lawmakers argued that the case file made clear the attack 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.”

Hodgkinson had a list of people to shoot in his pocket – which apparently FBI heads all ignored.

“The guy had a hit list in his pocket,” Jordan said. “[Former FBI director James] Comey, [former FBI deputy director Andrew] McCabe, [former FBI director Christopher] Wray, they all knew it was domestic terrorism, but that didn’t fit their narrative.”

The report identified three major failures by the FBI: neglecting to interview key shooting victims and witnesses, failing to establish “a comprehensive timeline of events,” and “improperly” classifying parts of its case file on the shooting rampage.

Incompetence or obstruction? Choices, choices…  For example, we have Congressman Mo Brooks (R, AL), who was on the list, shot himself, bandaged up Rep.  Scalise – and was never even interviewed as a witness or listed as a victim.

To defend its assessment that Hodgkinson intended to die by suicide via law enforcement shooting, the FBI pointed to two “goodbye” letters that he sent in the mail and the fact that he gave away some of his possessions with notes to the effect of “you may not see me again.”

Lawmakers faulted the bureau for not “considering context” that helps “differentiate between Hodgkinson being a domestic terrorist, aware he might die as opposed to simply being suicidal.”

They also pointed to actions he took “that may indicate he hoped to survive the firefight,” such as searching for directions from Alexandria, Virginia, to his home in Belleville, Ill. and texting his wife that he was returning home the night before the shooting.

As had been publicly reported not long after the attack, Hodgkinson harbored a deep animus against Republicans.

He was a member of a Facebook group named “Terminate the Republican Party,” members of which praised him after the attack.NY Post

Certainly sounds like suicide by cop, huh…

Category: Politics