House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) is urging the FBI to reopen their probe into the 2017 congressional baseball shooting.
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Scalise, along with 16 other members of Congress, expressed their frustration with the FBI after the agency declared the motivation behind the shooting was “suicide by cop.”
James Hodgkinson opened fire on Republican Members of Congress at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Virginia in 2017.
“Several of us attended this FBI briefing. All of us who were present at the ballfield, as well as those targeted on Hodgkinson’s ‘list,’ write to you today demanding answers and accountability from the FBI,” the Republicans wrote.
They added, “Today, there is a heightened focus on violent domestic extremism in the United States. We all agree that violent extremism of any kind must be rooted out and addressed by our law enforcement agencies. But we cannot presume to understand the scope of this issue if our law enforcement agencies do not investigate all instances of extremism, regardless of motivating ideology, with equal vigor.”
The Republicans expressed fear “that the FBI’s inability or unwillingness to fully investigate this shooting as a matter of domestic extremism four years ago leaves a blind spot within the Bureau in fully assessing risks we face today.”
They argued the FBI’s characterization of the shooting as “suicide by cop” does “nothing to alleviate this concern.”
Asking the FBI to reopen the investigation, the Republicans continued, “We also urge you to conduct an internal investigation into how the FBI reached the conclusion of ‘suicide by cop’ and who was behind that process and determination.”
In April, Scalise and other survivors of the shooting voiced their opposition to the FBI’s characterization of the shooting, as IJR previously reported.
“Director, you want suicide by cop, you just pull a gun on a cop. It doesn’t take 136 rounds. It takes one bullet,” they wrote in a letter to Wray.
