House Republicans revisited the 2017 congressional baseball shooting Tuesday, releasing a report attacking the FBI over its initial characterization of the event as a “suicide by cop.”
The report from the House Intelligence Committee incorporated FBI records released to Congress by Director Kash Patel in March. In an early morning news conference Tuesday, Intelligence Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) accused the bureau of acting with “a complete disregard and lack of investigative integrity.”
As first reported by POLITICO, the FBI in November 2017 briefed lawmakers who had been present for the shooting that it had determined that the attack was “suicide by cop” rather than a politically motivated act of terrorism. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others were wounded in the attack.
The shooter, 66-year-old Illinois man James Hodgkinson, was killed by Capitol Police after repeatedly firing his rifle at House Republicans who were practicing for the congressional baseball game. He had espoused left-wing political opinions and opposition to President Donald Trump before traveling to Washington and opening fire.
For Republicans, the FBI’s characterization at the time was a sign of the political motivation of the federal law enforcement agency which was used to “mislead and influence public opinion” in the words of Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas). In 2021, Jill Sanborn, the executive assistant director of the FBI, testified before Congress that the shooting was “something that we would today characterize as a domestic terrorism event.”
