FBI was wrong about ‘suicide by cop’ in baseball shooting, Congress finds
Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee released a report on Tuesday, May 6 that found the FBI’s initial conclusions about the 2017 Congressional baseball shooting were wrong: it was domestic terrorism, not “suicide by cop.”
The report stated the FBI at first deemed the incident suicide by cop based on false statements and the “manipulation of known facts.” In 2021, the FBI told Congress it changed its determination to domestic terrorism, the report pointed out.
According to the report, the FBI failed to conduct substantive interviews with all victims and witnesses, which led to an “incomplete investigation and substandard analysis.”
What happened during the 2017 Congressional baseball shooting?
On June 14, 2017, Illinois man James Hodgkinson, 66, opened fire on Republicans practicing for the annual Congressional baseball game.
Hodgkinson shot five people, including two Capitol police officers and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., before police killed him. Hodgkinson had a list of members he was targeting in his pocket.
Despite Hodgkinson’s list of targets, the fact that he appeared to scout the field ahead of time and his history of criticizing Republicans and conservatives, the FBI said the attack was suicide by cop.
“There were no hard facts to support the FBI’s suicide by cop conclusion,” Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, said at a news conference. “Based on our review of 3,000-plus pages provided to the committee, the only reasonable and, quite frankly, the very obvious determination is that this was an act of domestic terrorism.”
Seven days after the shooting, the FBI stated there was no “nexus to terrorism.” They later wrote an internal memo that included the suicide by cop determination and informed the victims.
“I was offended. I think all of us there were highly offended,” Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters. “The guy went there and not only tried to kill all of us — I had two Capitol police officers with me on my detail, he tried to kill both of them. Suicide by cop is not when you try to kill everyone around, including the cops. And by the way, he didn’t even know they were cops because they were dressed in plain clothes.”
When the shooting investigation was conducted, the FBI was being run by acting director Andrew McCabe, who replaced James Comey after President Donald Trump fired Comey. McCabe opened two investigations into the president: a criminal probe into whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey and another into whether the president was working on behalf of Russia.
McCabe was later fired because he “lacked candor” under oath during a leaked investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General.
After that, conservatives started making accusations of a “deep state” within the federal government. GOP lawmakers said they’re now working to clean it up during the second Trump administration.
“We have a long way to go to rebuild and reestablish the trust and the confidence of the American people in the FBI, the DOJ and our intelligence committee. This starts that process,” Jackson stated.
After the shooting, Scalise spent the next 20 days in intensive care and six weeks in the hospital before being transferred to an inpatient rehabilitation facility. Pieces of the bullet will remain inside him for the rest of his life.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
