A bombshell House Intelligence Committee report has revealed that the FBI mischaracterized the 2017 attempted mass assassination of Republican lawmakers as “suicide by cop” despite clear evidence of political motivation. Republican Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas shared the findings in a segment with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, who expressed disbelief at the federal agency’s conclusions.
The 2017 attack, carried out by James Hodgkinson—a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign—left then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana critically wounded, along with a staffer and a Capitol Police officer. According to the newly released report, the shooter had a manifesto and a list of Republican lawmakers, and he engaged in a ten-minute firefight, suggesting a premeditated assassination attempt.
“It took us eight years to get that,” Crawford said, crediting current FBI Director Kash Patel for granting access to the case files. Crawford criticized the FBI’s original narrative, which dismissed political motivation and framed the shooting as a non-terrorist incident. “That was not suicide by cop and any reasonable person would have dismissed that immediately,” he said.
The report outlines that there were no uniformed officers present when the shooting began, undermining the FBI’s original rationale. It wasn’t until May 2021—four years later and without any new evidence—that the FBI revised its view to suggest there might have been a nexus to domestic terrorism.
Bartiromo responded sharply: “There was no connection to terrorism initially and now we see a completely different narrative in the report… How is this allowed?” She further questioned the FBI’s objectivity, calling the handling of the investigation “unconscionable.”
Crawford accused the agency of pushing a politically motivated narrative under former Acting Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe was later fired in 2018 after being found to have lied about leaking to the press, though the Biden administration reversed the firing in a 2021 settlement.
The report adds fuel to ongoing concerns over political bias within federal law enforcement, particularly in high-profile cases involving conservative figures or causes. It also raises alarms about how politically charged violence is classified and investigated, especially when it targets Republicans.
