FBI’s years long stonewalling on 2017 congressional softball shooting is over: Patel

FBI Director Kash Patel announced this week that he had handed over to Congress long-sought bureau records related to the 2017 congressional baseball game shooting following years of House Republicans arguing the bureau was stonewalling on why it had labeled the attack “suicide by cop” instead of domestic terrorism.

James Hodgkinson, an extreme left-wing activist living out of a van in northern Virginia opened fire on Republicans at an Alexandria baseball field on June 14, 2017 after asking GOP congressmen who had left the practice early if the players were Republicans or Democrats. GOP Congressman Steve Scalise nearly died as a result of the attack. Before opening fire, Hodgkinson reportedly asked if the players on the field were Republicans, and then proceeded with his armed assault.

Republican congressmen have for years harshly criticized the 2017 decision by the FBI, led in an acting capacity at the time by Andrew McCabe, not to label the shooting by Hodgkinson as domestic terrorism despite his targeting of elected Republican leaders as they practiced for the annual Congressional Baseball Game. The FBI had instead dubbed the attack “suicide by cop” — a position the bureau refused to reverse until 2021, and a position the FBI has never fully explained.

“I can report that as of 30 minutes ago, the FBI has provided the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence all requested documents related to the Congressional Baseball Game shooting in 2017,” Patel declared on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Wednesday. “These are documents sought by Capitol Hill officials for almost 8 years. Providing these documents was one of our top priorities in delivering a new FBI era of transparency. Thank you to the committee and Chairman Rep. Rick Crawford for your partnership in getting Americans the truth.”

Report on attempted mass murder delivered

Congressman Trent Kelly, the vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told Patel during a Wednesday hearing that Congress had sent letters to the FBI in 2023 and 2024 asking for details about the baseball game shooting, and that “I know you will give us what we asked for so that we can put this to rest.”

And Congressman Rick Crawford, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, soon announced during the Wednesday hearing that “I just got notice that the baseball shooting report… has been delivered to our SCIF” — the committee’s Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.

“The 2017 shooting at the Republican’s Congressional baseball practice was a jarring and very personal moment for all of us. House Intel Republicans have been requesting the complete FBI report on the shooting for years. I appreciate Director Patel’s swift follow through on his commitment—a welcome change from the FBI. Director Patel did in hours what previous FBI leadership couldn’t do in 8 years," Crawford told Just the News.

“I really appreciate that Kash Patel is making that available… They had initially classified it, the FBI did, as ‘suicide by cop.’ Now here is a guy who went to the baseball field specifically looking to shoot and kill every Republican on the ballfield… How can you call that suicide by cop when he was trying to kill all of us, including the police officers?” Scalise told "The Alec Lace Show" in an interview posted Thursday. “We were offended and just alarmed at the FBI back in 2017. … We were very curious how the FBI came to some of those conclusions, but then they redacted so many items in that report. Now we’re going to get the full, unredacted report.”

Killer had a list of GOP congressmen

As he sprayed bullets at the GOP members practicing for a baseball game, Hodgkinson’s gunfire struck Scalise in the hip, hit lobbyist Matt Mika in the chest, and injured two Capitol Police officers, Crystal Griner and David Bailey. Scalise nearly bled to death and required multiple surgeries before returning to Congress. The shooter, who was killed by police, had written down the names of GOP congressmen.

McCabe, who was deeply involved in the FBI’s roundly criticized Crossfire Hurricane investigation, took over the FBI after the May 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey, who himself had played a key role in the false Trump-Russia collusion saga. It was during McCabe’s tenure that the bureau rejected calling the shooting "domestic terrorism." McCabe did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News through his LinkedIn page.

For years, House Republicans have called upon FBI Director Christopher Wray, who led the bureau from August 2017 through 2024, to provide further answers about the FBI’s decision to deny for years that the shooting was domestic terrorism, but the GOP members have said full transparency was lacking.

Hodgkinson supporter of Democratic presidential primary candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, was killed by law enforcement after the attack. Infuriated by Trump winning the 2016 election, he had posted on Facebook that “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” and had joined other groups such as “Terminate The Republican Party” and “Join The Resistance Worldwide!!”

“Suicide By Cop” vs. Domestic Terrorism

The FBI declared just a week after the shooting in June 2017 that it did not consider the baseball shooting a terrorist attack, saying, “The FBI is investigating this shooting as an assault on a member of Congress and an assault on a federal officer. At this point in the investigation, the FBI does not believe there is a nexus to terrorism.” The FBI held onto this position for years.

Alexandria’s top prosecutor, Bryan Porter, released a report in October 2017 concluding the shooting was clearly terrorism. “The evidence in this case establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect, fueled by rage against Republican legislators, decided to commit an act of terrorism as that term is defined by the Code of Virginia,” the report read. 

“The suspect, using a lawfully-purchased assault rifle and handgun, ambushed a peaceful assembly of people practicing baseball and began to fire indiscriminately in an effort to kill and maim as many people as possible.”

The Virginia commonwealth attorney noted that the pertinent part of the Code of Virginia defines an “Act of Terrorism” as “an act of violence… committed with the intent to: (i) intimidate the civilian population at large; or (ii) influence the conduct or activities of the government of the United States, a state, or locality through intimidation.”

Congressman Brad Wenstrup, an Ohio Republican, revealed during a House Intelligence Committee meeting with then-Director Wray in mid-April 2021 that the FBI had privately informed Congress in November 2017 that the bureau considered the shooting to be “suicide by cop.”

“Much to our shock that day, the FBI concluded that this was a case of the attacker seeking suicide by cop,” Wenstrup said. “Director, you want suicide by cop, you just pull a gun on a cop. It doesn’t take 136 rounds. It takes one bullet. Both [Department of Homeland Security] and the [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] published products labeling this attack as a domestic violent extremism event, specifically targeting Republican members of Congress. The FBI did not. The FBI still has not.”

Wray called the shooting “the horrific, horrific attack at the baseball field on that day” during the mid-April 2021 hearing, but the FBI chief did not explain why the bureau had labeled the attack suicide by cop nor why the bureau had declined to classify it as domestic terrorism. Wenstrup also penned a letter to Wray that month in 2021 that said the FBI’s conclusion “defies logic and contradicts the publicly known facts.”

“As a Member who was present during the attack and the November 2017 briefing, and as a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I request that the FBI Counterterrorism Division promptly review the investigative findings, interview all relevant witnesses, and update, as appropriate, the investigative conclusions-including an internal investigation of how the FBI reached its ‘suicide by cop’ conclusion,” Wenstrup told Wray in the letter.

Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, tweeted that month: “I was shot by a deranged Leftist who came to the baseball field with a list of Congressional Republicans to kill. This was NOT ‘suicide by cop.’ End of story.”

FBI now admits it was terrorism, but questions remain

After the renewed public pressure by House Republicans, the FBI began moving toward admitting that the 2017 congressional baseball game shooting was, indeed, domestic terrorism.

During a late-April 2021 hearing in front of a House appropriations subcommittee, Jill Sanborn, the executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch, acknowledged it was an intentional attack on lawmakers and that, if it had happened in 2021, Wray’s FBI would now consider it to be domestic terrorism.

GOP Rep. Robert Aderholt argued during that hearing that “the shooter was a deranged shooter of Bernie Sanders who … had a list of Republican members of Congress in his pocket when he ambushed the group” and said that “classifying the attack as a suicide by cop really defies logic.” The Alabama Republican asked if “the FBI cleared up this by reclassifying the incident as an act of domestic terrorism.”

“It’s fair to say that the shooter was motivated by a desire to commit an attack on members of Congress and then knowing by doing so he would likely be killed in the process,” Sanborn said.

“Cases like this are challenging because there were, as you mentioned, a couple of clues left behind, but he died in the process, never allowing us to fully examine through, say, an interview, his motivation.”

She added: “There are also indicators that the shooter intended the shooting to be his final act on earth, but those things are not inconsistent with someone who is motivated by a variety of factors to commit violent acts based on a blend of ideological or personal motivations, and this conduct is something that today we would characterize as a domestic terrorism event.”

The FBI official claimed that “this is also a good example of … a trend we started to see probably 2016-ish, which is that the motivation and sort of what drove someone to mobilize is a very personalized grievance that they hold, which is something different from the domestic terrorism threat that we saw in years past.”

Aderholt asked if that meant the FBI now considered the shooting to be an act of domestic terrorism, and Sanborn testified, “If it were to happen today, we would open this as a domestic terrorism case.”

The GOP congressman asked why the FBI hadn’t classified it as domestic terrorism in the first place, and she replied, “I would have to get back to you on the specifics of what that rationale was, but in going back and looking at it, and honestly at the trend of that personalized grievance motivation, it fits squarely into the phenomena that the director, and I have talked about often, which is this very personalized sort of blending of ideologies that motivates somebody.”

Then-Assistant Attorney General Brad Wiegman told Congress in late April 2021 that Hodgkinson was a “domestic terrorist.” Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, when pressed on the “suicide by cop” versus “domestic terrorism” saga by House Republicans in early May 2021, told Congress that “I promise I will raise the issue with the FBI.”

That month, the FBI quietly admitted that the 2017 shooting had now been classified as “domestic terrorism” carried out by a “domestic violent extremist” targeting Republicans.

Scalise and other Republicans had sent Wray a May 2021 letter demanding answers, noting that Hodgkinson had “a potential ‘hit list’ of six Members of Congress – Republicans Trent Franks, Jim Jordan, Morgan Griffith, Scott DesJarlais, Jeff Duncan, and Mo Brooks – in his pocket” — yet the FBI had classified it as “suicide by cop.”

In response, the FBI’s admission the next week appeared in the middle of an appendix on page 35 of a 40-page FBI-DHS joint report released in May 2021 and titled “Security Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism.” In a section describing approximately 85 different “FBI-Designated Significant Domestic Terrorism Incidents in the United States from 2015 through 2019,” the Alexandria baseball field shooting appears, with the FBI categorizing the perpetrator as a “Domestic Violent Extremist.” The report described Hodgkinson  as “an individual with a personalized violent ideology targeted and shot Republican members of Congress at a baseball field and wounded five people.”

The saga did not end in 2021 or 2022

Wenstrup again grilled Wray in May 2024 about how the FBI had reached its initial conclusion that the baseball shooting was suicide by cop, and said that “we’re being blocked” by the bureau from getting answers, calling the FBI’s attitude “very contemptuous.” Wenstrup asked if Wray would commit to providing the name of the FBI who had “practiced this gross negligence” and had engaged in a “potentially politically motivated decision” by dubbing it "suicide by cop."

The FBI said in June 2017 that “the Internet searches Hodgkinson performed the night before the shooting” included a Google map search from Alexandria to his home in Illinois and a Google search of the “2017 Republican Convention.” Wray said that “I know we have provided all sorts of information” but that “I will double down on our efforts to see if there is more information we can provide.” Republicans say Wray’s FBI continued to stonewall through the end of his tenure.

The Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center said in an October 2017 report that, just after 7 a. m. on the morning of the shooting, Hodgkinson walked across the street to the baseball field. The soon-to-be shooter approached two House Republicans — then-Congressman Jeff Duncan and then-Congressman and now-Governor Ron DeSantis — who were by their car getting ready to leave early. Hodgkinson “asked them whether those practicing were Republicans or Democrats” and “the representatives confirmed they were Republicans.” Hodgkinson then “thanked them and returned to his van, where he retrieved his rifle, two clips holding 80 rounds, and his pistol.”

After he was killed, investigators found that Hodgkinson had a handwritten note on him which “listed six Republican congressional representatives and included a brief description of the individuals and the location of their offices in the Rayburn House Office Building,” according to the Secret Service. Those listed included GOP Congressmen Jeff Duncan, Scott DesJarlais, Trent Franks, Morgan Griffith, Jim Jordan, and Mo Brooks. Investigators also “determined that Hodgkinson conducted a superficial internet search for two of these congressmen in the months prior to the attack.”

Long history of hatred towards Republicans

Hodgkinson had a long history of hating Republicans — often those in Congress. Republican Congressman Mike Bost, who represented the Illinois district where the shooter lived, told The Washington Post that Hodgkinson emailed his office at least nine times, and also called him the year prior to the shooting. The congressman said that “every issue that we were working on, he was not in support of” and that Hodgkinson’s messages did not come “with any threats, only anger” and that the future shooter “never crossed the line, but he was always angry.”

The Secret Service wrote in October 2017 that he “openly shared his anti-Republican views with friends, family, and others.”

“In the few years leading up to his attack, Hodgkinson made numerous written statements criticizing Republican policies and ideology, as well as statements directly criticizing specific public officials, including congressmen and former Republican Presidents of the United States,” the Secret Service wrote. “The communications were through calls or emails to his congressional representative, letters sent to the local paper, and comments or re-postings of articles or political comics on Facebook or Twitter. On Facebook alone, he posted such statements three to four times per week.”

The federal agency added that “Hodgkinson never made a threat against any public officials or made his intentions for the attack known to others, but he did engage in politically-charged rhetoric that was derogatory and antagonistic.”

As one example, Hodgkinson posted an anti-GOP political cartoon in October 2015, the Daily Mail reported, and he commented on it that “Thieving Republican Congress Strikes Again!!!” Hodgkinson even posted a political comic specifically about Scalise in January 2015, according to the Washington Post, commenting, “Here’s a Republican that should Lose His Job, but they Gave Him a Raise.”

He wrote to his local newspaper, the Belleville News-Democrat, that “I have never said ‘life sucks,’ only the policies of the Republicans.” He also wrote repeatedly that “we need to vote all Republicans out of Congress.” He also wrote, “There’s a new version of what GOP stands for. It’s not the Grand Old Party anymore. It’s the Greedy One Percenters.”

He also wrote to the newspaper about his disdain for former President Ronald Reagan, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, former President George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and many others.

Trump’s 2016 win drove the shooter “bananas”

Notably, Hodgkinson purchased one of the two weapons he used in the attack just days after President Donald Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. The Secret Service said that one week after the November 2016 election, Hodgkinson “legally purchased the Smith & Wesson M&P Shield 9mm semi-automatic pistol that he later used in his attack in Alexandria.”

Porter, the Alexandria prosecutor, said in his report that Hodgkinson fired at least 70 rounds during his attack — 62 rounds from his rifle (purchased many years prior) and eight rounds from the handgun purchased shortly after Trump’s 2016 victory.

The Secret Service wrote that “during the presidential campaign and following the election, others noted changes in his behavior as he became increasingly unhappy, angry, and more politically charged.” Alexandria’s commonwealth attorney also wrote in October 2017 that “Hodgkinson held strong political opinions and was very unhappy about the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.”

The New York Times reported his wife said that “it was during the 2016 presidential campaign that Mr. Hodgkinson’s Democratic politics boiled into a rage," and that her husband went “bananas” after Trump won. The outlet also reported that upon hearing initial news coverage of the June 2017 shooting, “it briefly occurred to” Hodgkinson’s wife “that her husband might have done it” because “he had been so angry.”

One person who claimed to know Hodgkinson for two decades said that his political views had become “extreme” and “fanatic” in 2016, according to an interview by The New York Times, and that while “life moved on for other people” after Clinton’s loss and Trump’s win, the election had “never ended for him.”

Hodgkinson posted on his Facebook page in March 2017 that he had signed a Change.org petition calling for the removal of then-President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence over accusations of treason. The Daily Mail reported that the future shooter commented on his post saying, “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”

The shooter also joined Facebook groups such as “Terminate The Republican Party” and “Join The Resistance Worldwide!!” The former does not appear to be active, while the latter appears to be still active, with 252 members.

Shooter: “my loving President Obama”

Hodgkinson also had a longtime affinity for Democrats, and Hodgkinson was a strong supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders — who quickly condemned the attack when it occurred.

Hodgkinson wrote about “my loving President Obama” in 2012 and wrote to his local newspaper that “one of my favorite TV shows is ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ on MSNBC.” He also said “the best book I’ve read in a while is ‘Aftershock’ by Robert B. Reich” — the leftwing labor secretary for former President Bill Clinton.

The shooter was also a fan of the far-left Occupy Wall Street movement.

He wrote a 2011 letter to his local newspaper expressing admiration for the Occupy Wall Street protests and lamented “our do-nothing Congress doing nothing while our country is going down the tubes.” And he attended an Occupy Wall Street protest that year, where he told a local TV station that “the 99% are getting pushed around — and the 1% are just not giving a damn — so we gotta speak up for the whole country.”

“Long live Bernie Sanders,” Hodkinson wrote to his local newspaper in 2012. 

The Secret Service confirmed that during the 2016 campaign cycle, “Hodgkinson was an avid supporter of presidential candidate Sanders and volunteered for the senator’s campaign in Illinois.” The Washington Post reported that the shooter used a picture of Sanders for his Facebook cover image.

Hodgkinson posted a petition from Change.org in June 2016 calling upon Sanders to keep campaigning, the Daily Mail reported, with the future shooter commenting that “Bernie is the Only Candidate in Decades that Really Cares about the Working Class.” The outlet added that, after Sanders lost the nomination to Clinton, Hodgkinson called upon Sanders to join the Green Party, commenting that “I want Bernie to Win the White House.”

Sanders took to the floor of the Senate the day of the shooting to condemn the attack by his supporter.

"I have just been informed that the alleged shooter at the Republican baseball practice this morning is someone who apparently volunteered on my presidential campaign. I am sickened by this despicable act. And let me be as clear as I can be: violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms.”

Scalise: McCabe’s remarks “unbelievable"

Andrew McCabe, the since-fired FBI chief who classified the 2017 shooting as "suicide by cop" and not as "domestic terrorism," contended in the summer of 2021 — after the FBI under Wray had already shifted its stance — that he "was not sure of the gunman’s reason for the ambush."

Even Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland gave a speech at the Justice Department in mid-June 2021 where he labeled the congressional baseball game shooting an instance of “domestic terrorism and violent extremism” and said that “an attacker shot four people at a Congressional baseball practice, after confirming that the players were Republicans.”

“He [Garland] did it very carefully by saying the shooting by someone who committed the shooting only after he confirmed that the players were Republicans,” McCabe said in a June 2021 interview on CNN. “So, I think that reflects at the fact that the FBI still doesn’t exactly know what that shooter was up to. They never really uncovered the sort of detailed evidence that laid out a specific plot or an objective, but it is undeniable that he was targeting Republicans.”

Scalise called McCabe’s remarks “unbelievable” on Twitter: “Andrew McCabe says the FBI isn't sure why we were attacked playing baseball. Seriously? The gunman came with a list of Republicans. He verified we were Republicans before shooting. He was in the Facebook group ‘Terminate the Republican Party.’ A real mystery.”

Crawford, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told Just the News on Thursday that "I am encouraged by this display of transparency, and I am hopeful the Committee can count on all Intel leaders to provide us the information we need to conduct our oversight authority.”

It remains to be seen if the FBI documents recently handed over to the House Intelligence Committee will be made public — and whether they will finally help answer the mystery of why the bureau handled this case the way it did.