House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Tuesday that the FBI "completely mishandled" its investigation into the 2017 shooting during a Republican baseball practice that left him severely injured.
Scalise was reacting to a report issued by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence dated Tuesday that said the FBI's investigation was far worse, calling it biased and flawed.
The panel, chaired by Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., said in its report that it "could not be more disappointed by the FBI's incomplete investigation and substandard analysis in 2017" of the shooting by James Hodgkinson that left Scalise fighting for his life and injured three others, including two U.S. Capitol Police officers, who were part of Scalise's security detail that day.
"This 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," Scalise said in a post to X. "This was a deliberate and planned act of domestic terrorism toward Republican Members of Congress."
Hodgkinson traveled from his home in Illinois to Alexandria, Virginia, and opened fire on June 14, 2017, at Republicans practicing for the annual Congressional baseball game before being killed by return fire.
Despite having cased the ballfield and taken 15 photos, despite having a list of six Republican lawmakers — Scalise was not one — with congressional addresses written on a piece of paper, and despite public statements and social media postings highly critical of Republicans, the FBI issued a press release one week later saying there was "no nexus to terrorism" and that Hodgkinson's actions mostly aligned "with an act of suicide by cop," the report read.
The FBI in 2021 changed its official position: "The shooter was motivated by a desire to commit an attack on Members of Congress. … This conduct is something that we would today characterize as a domestic terrorism event."
"The FBI arrived at the obvious conclusion four years too late," read the conclusion of the committee's 27-page report.
It added, "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."
The committee also issued five recommendations, including urging FBI Director Kash Patel to open a review into the 2017 investigation under then Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe to determine if it was politically motivated or the "result of substandard analysis from the special agents and intelligence analysts who were closest to the case."
Scalise underwent multiple surgeries — including blood transfusions — to repair his shattered hip and internal organs as a result of the shooting. He spent several weeks in intensive care and returned to Congress four months later.