BY TYLER O'NEIL APR 21, 2021 6:14 PM ET
Last week, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) revealed an utterly shocking fact: when a deranged leftist named James Hodgkinson opened fire on congressional Republicans in 2017, nearly killing GOP Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), the FBI ruled the shooting a “suicide by cop.” Even FBI agents disputed the ruling, Wenstrup added.
“I was there in Alexandria, Virginia, on the morning of June 14, 2017, when a shooter attacked Republican members of Congress practicing for a charity baseball game,” Wenstrup began in a hearing on Thursday. “We know from [the shooter’s] social media posts that he hated Republicans and that he hated President Trump. He loved Bernie Sanders and he held left-wing beliefs. We know he carried in his pocket that day a target list with names of Republican congressmen… that included their physical descriptions.”
The shooter also reportedly asked a congressman whether those practicing on the field were Republicans or Democrats. He fired 136 rounds at those on the field, after confirming that they were Republicans. Wenstrup briefly listed a few of the key facts that “by the grace of God” enabled the Capitol Police to take down the shooter before he could kill any congressmen. Even so, Scalise barely survived with his life.
Wenstrup described the shooting as an attempted “insurrection.”
“Trapped in a field would have been 20 to 30 Republicans assassinated, and the attacker may have believed that he could change the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives in one morning,” the congressman added.
He noted that the FBI did not call any of the congressmen as witnesses about the shooting, but “on November 16, 2017, FBI agents briefed those of us that were on the field that day… Much to our shock that day, the FBI concluded that this was a case of the attacker seeking ‘suicide by cop.'”
“Director, if you want suicide by cop, you just pull a gun on a cop. It doesn’t take 136 rounds. It takes one bullet,” Wenstrup noted. “Both the [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.”
“On November 18, 2019, I went over to the FBI to discuss this conclusion. Although the agents were not part of that investigation, they did not agree that this was suicide by cop. And it’s my firsthand opinion that this was an attempted assassination of many Republican members of Congress.”
Wenstrup sent a letter to the FBI demanding an investigation into the 2017 shooting and demanding answers about who categorized the shooting as an attempt at “suicide by cop.”
Ever since the truth came out regarding the FBI’s investigation into Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 election, conservatives have rightly questioned the integrity of the FBI. This incident suggests that in the summer of 2017, FBI investigators were so blinded by bias that they ignored the truth right under their noses and buried the shooter’s clear motives.
The FBI did not publicly release its final conclusions about the shooting, but in an interim update a week after the horrific attack, the bureau claimed that it had found no evidence of threats to GOP lawmakers or the baseball team on the gunman’s electric devices. Wenstrup’s remarks are the first public revelation regarding the “suicide by cop” conclusion.
Alexandria prosecutors publicly labeled the attack an act of “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,” commonwealth prosecutor Bryan Porter concluded.
Democrats voiced support for Wenstrup’s criticism of the “suicide by cop” conclusion, Politico reported.
“I actually would like to associate my — your comments with my interest in wanting to pursue that as well, Dr. Wenstrup,” Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said.
“I’d like to second Dr. Wenstrup’s questions on the near massacre of our colleagues in 2017,” added Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.). “So I, like my colleague, Jackie Speier, have a particular interest in that.”
“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,” Scalise tweeted.
In the hearing, Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.) — whose life was saved by a chain-link fence that deflected one of Hodgkinson’s bullets — also called on the FBI to investigate the matter.
“It was not a suicide by cop, and I would really wish you guys would follow up and clean that up because it matters to me,” Kelly insisted.
In the Trump-Russia investigation, the FBI targeted a Republican presidential campaign based on salacious and unverified claims in a document that his Democratic opponent’s campaign funded. Only this kind of heinous political bias could explain how the FBI could forcibly bury Hodgkinson’s clear motivations.
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Really never thought I would see an organization like the FBI be so corrupt and obtuse. That's what happens when leaders get their jobs through patronage and not tons of experience working from the bottom up.
