House report slams FBI for ignoring political motives in 2017 congressional baseball shooting

The FBI used a “biased and butchered analysis” to conclude that a left-wing gunman who shot Rep. Steve Scalise and three others at a Republican baseball practice in 2017 wasn’t motivated by political hatred, according to a House Republican report released Tuesday.

The scathing report challenged the FBI’s initial findings that gunman James Hodgkinson, 66, who died in a shootout with law enforcement, had been trying to commit “suicide by cop.” It said the FBI had handwritten evidence from the gunman about his political motives, including the names of six Republican lawmakers and photographs he took while casing the ball field, but didn’t fully disclose all the details at the time.

The gunman shot Mr. Scalise, Louisiana Republican, who was then House majority whip. Mr. Scalise nearly died, and three others were also wounded.

The 3,000-page report by the majority staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence criticizes the FBI’s investigation under acting Director Andrew McCabe. It says the agency had “predetermined” that Hodgkinson’s motives were “suicide by cop” rather than a “premeditated assassination attempt on Republican congressmen by a radical, left-wing political extremist.”

Committee Chairman Rick Crawford, Arkansas Republican, said the FBI acted with “a complete disregard and lack of investigative integrity.” Committee Democrats largely agreed with the report’s findings.

Hodgkinson proclaimed left-wing ideology and opposition to President Trump before the shooting. He traveled from Illinois to open fire with a rifle at the ball field in Alexandria, Virginia, where Republican lawmakers were practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game.

Hodgkinson engaged in a 10-minute shootout with U.S. Capitol Police and Alexandria Police Department officers before he was fatally shot.

The committee noted that an FBI press release at the time withheld information from the public that would have undermined the agency’s “suicide by cop” narrative.

FBI Director Kash Patel provided a case file for the committee’s review. The file lays out the committee’s conclusion that, under Mr. McCabe in 2017, “the FBI used false statements, manipulation of known facts, and biased and butchered analysis to support a narrative that shooter James Hodgkinson committed suicide by cop without any nexus to domestic terrorism.”

The report says FBI investigators failed to substantively interview the shooting victims and other eyewitnesses and failed to develop a comprehensive timeline of events.

The report describes how the FBI case file was improperly classified, which may have helped the agency obfuscate substandard investigative efforts and analysis. It points out that the FBI had handwritten notes detailing Hodgkinson’s political thoughts and motivations.

The FBI had 15 photos that Hodgkinson took two months earlier when he was casing the baseball practice field.

“The FBI’s cherry-picking on what to disclose or not to disclose to substantiate a conclusion demonstrates politicization and lack of objectivity that the committee has observed in other [intelligence community] analytic products for high-profile cases,” the committee said.

With no new information, the FBI changed its conclusion in 2021 from “suicide by cop” to domestic violent extremism. The report urges Mr. Patel to conduct a “swift review” to determine how the FBI arrived at its initial conclusion and whether the finding was determined from “the top down” by Mr. McCabe or others.

In a statement to The Washington Times, the FBI said: “We are grateful for our partners in Congress, and as Director Patel promised during his confirmation, this FBI 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.”

Mr. Scalise, who is now House majority leader, said in a statement that the report “definitively shows the FBI completely mishandled the investigation into the Congressional baseball shooting of 2017 — ignoring crucial and obvious facts in order to sell a false narrative that the shooting was not politically motivated.”

“I want to thank FBI Director Kash Patel, Chairman Rick Crawford, and the staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for finally getting to the truth of the matter: this was a deliberate and planned act of domestic terrorism toward Republican Members of Congress,” he said.

Mr. Scalise encouraged Mr. Patel “to adopt the recommendations of the committee to ensure the intelligence community is rid of bias and to identify who was responsible for the misleading and incorrect conclusions and why, and ensure the FBI gets back to its mission of following the facts, wherever they may lead.”

Mr. Crawford criticized the FBI for having “stonewalled the committee” before Mr. Trump was elected to a second term.

He said, “Unfortunately, this report confirms that under previous FBI leadership, the bureau completely botched the investigation into this politically motivated attack which threatened the lives of numerous Republican members of Congress, staff and bystanders.”

Rep. Ronny Jackson, Texas Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations, thanked Mr. Trump and Mr. Patel “for putting an end to the FBI’s obstruction of congressional oversight on this issue.”

“We will continue to hold the intelligence community accountable and ensure intelligence assessments are objective and free from political bias. I look forward to Director Patel uncovering how political bias found its way into this high-profile case,” Mr. Jackson said.