Republican congressmen on Friday linked the lack of trust in the FBI following the raid on former President Donald Trump’s home this week to the bureau’s refusal for years to label the 2017 congressional baseball shooting as an act of domestic terrorism.
House Intelligence Committee Republicans held a press conference Friday morning, demanding Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray provide more details about the Trump raid. The congressmen connected their skepticism about the FBI’s actions on Monday to the bureau’s handling of the 2017 Virginia shooting that nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA).
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) said the FBI was still withholding answers on that shooting.
“So, you want to know why the American people don’t trust our institutions? It’s things like this, because the decision they made defies logic,” Wenstrup said, adding, “So, we want to know why, how, and by whom these mistakes were made. We need access to the case file to answer these questions, and the FBI has been unwilling to share the case file with us, which we have every right to see.”
The FBI admitted in May 2021 that the Alexandria attack had been classified as “domestic terrorism” carried out by a “domestic violent extremist” targeting Republicans, after the bureau previously classified it as “suicide by cop.”
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“A heavily armed assassin — clearly by his social media and the things he wrote was motivated politically. He hated Donald Trump. He wanted to kill Republicans. He had names of Republicans in his pocket,” Wenstrup said.
From 2017 to 2021, the FBI refused to classify the attack as domestic terrorism.
In June 2017, James Hodgkinson, a man from Illinois who was living out of a van in Alexandria, opened fire at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park after asking Republican congressmen leaving practice early if the players were Republicans or Democrats. Hodgkinson struck Scalise in the hip, hit lobbyist Matt Mika in the chest, and injured two U.S. Capitol Police officers, Crystal Griner and David Bailey. Scalise nearly bled to death.
Hodgkinson, an avid supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), was killed by law enforcement. He had posted on Facebook that “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” and joined other groups such as “Terminate The Republican Party.” Hodgkinson had a potential “hit list” of six Republican members of Congress in his pocket.
“Despite all these facts, on November 16, 2017, FBI personnel came to those of us that were there and told us, ‘We just surmise that this guy wanted to commit suicide by cop.’ If your jaw doesn’t drop with that assessment by the FBI, it should,” Wenstrup said.
Wenstrup said that if Capitol police hadn’t been there protecting Scalise, “there you have a situation where this man single-handedly could have killed 20 to 30 members of Congress and staff, changing the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.”
The comments were made in a press conference led by Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), the top House Intelligence Committee Republican, who has spent the week pushing Wray and Garland for answers on the unprecedented Trump raid. Wray has declined to answer questions, while Garland said Thursday in a short public statement he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.”
Rep. Trent Kelly (R-MS) also raised the issue of the attempted 2017 assassination on Friday.
“The baseball shooting over five years ago — I was there,” Kelly said. “The perpetrator is dead; however, to this day, the FBI continues to use cover-up and hiding and will not disclose the files.”
Kelly added: “We have the right to see that investigation, but we have been denied that, request after request after request. … I want to know who came to decisions, who signed off on all this. … But there is no transparency at the 7th floor of the FBI, there is no transparency at the high levels of the Department of Justice.”
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Wenstrup and Kelly said the FBI’s handling of the shooting helped lead to the mistrust about the Trump raid.
“We have concerns today primarily in the leadership,” Wenstrup said. “I’d like to say those concerns are not the feelings of every American, or the majority of Americans, but it is. It is, and I’m hearing it from both sides of the aisle. They are worried about the weaponization — the politicization of the DOJ and the FBI. This raid is unprecedented. We want answers. We deserve answers.”
Wray said Thursday that “unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others.”
