By Steve Neavling
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-L.A., joined more than a dozen other House Republicans demanding the FBI reevaluate its conclusion about the 2017 shooting that left him and others wounded at a congressional baseball team practice.
The Republicans, who were on the field when gunman James Hodgkinson opened fire and struck four people, are questioning the FBI’s conclusion that the shooter was motivated by “suicide by cop.”
“We 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,” the Republicans wrote in a letter Tuesday FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Hodgkinson, who was fatally shot by police, had supported liberal causes. As the FBI investigates domestic extremism, the Republicans are pointing to violence from supporters on the left.
“We all agree that violent extremism of any kind must be rooted out and addressed by our law enforcement agencies,” the letter states. “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.”
