Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR), Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) release a Congressional probe of the FBI report on the 2017 shooting of a practice of the GOP Congressional Baseball Team.
Category
š
NewsTranscript
02:36It was consistent with proper procedures and was supported by flawed intelligence analysis.
02:41Its conclusions failed to follow the facts as it reached an unsupported conclusion without
02:45completing even the most basic of investigative activities.
02:49Subsequently, under pressure from Congress and when aligned with new policy, the Bureau
02:53changed its conclusions, though it did not offer any new information and was continued
03:03to be an incomplete investigative action.
03:06Public integrity and objectivity of the intelligence community, which is required by law, has been
03:10far too often thrown aside in high-profile events.
03:14Unfortunately, the committee's review found this case was no different.
03:18Through our oversight review, we found that the FBI prematurely declared the case to be
03:21quote, suicide by cop, misconstruing information, misleading the public, and misrepresenting
03:27the facts.
03:29The FBI then spent four years guarding those determinations by obstructing congressional
03:33oversight.
03:34I will let Mr. Jackson share details of the report.
03:36But I will say it's unacceptable and alarming that the FBI would approach any investigation
03:41within its purview with this complete disregard and lack of investigative integrity.
03:46As I said before, my tenure as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee will be marked
03:49by rigorous oversight of the IC to address the significant degradation of the intelligence
03:53community's investigative and analytic integrity.
03:57There have been far too many instances of failure to document the facts and present a conclusion
04:01that is unclouded by personal political or institutional bias.
04:06The House Intelligence Committee will continue to hold the IC accountable for the omission or
04:09suppression of key information in some assessments and the far too prevalent failure to respond
04:14to congressional oversight.
04:16Simply said, this boils down to the fact that Americans and their elected leaders need to
04:19be able to trust the IC.
04:21It's a national security imperative, and I'm hopeful that Director Patel's transparency with
04:26the committee bodes well that the administration intends to work with Congress to correct the
04:30failures and rebuild an IC that the American people can trust.
04:34Thank you, Chairman Jordan, for your partnership in overseeing the operations and activities of
04:37the FBI.
04:38I want to now hand it over to HPSI Oversight and Investigation Chairman Dr. Ronnie Jackson.
04:43Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
04:46And thank you, Chairman Crawford, for leading this issue and for your support of this oversight
04:51review.
04:52The American people deserve a government that is accountable and transparent.
04:55Oversight of the intelligence community is intended to ensure those in that community
04:59are held to this same standard.
05:01As the chairman of the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee, there is no greater priority than ensuring
05:06elements of the IC are employing proper investigative and analytic tradecraft independent of political
05:11considerations.
05:13That is why we worked around the clock to review the case file provided by Director Patel and
05:18published this vital oversight report just weeks later.
05:21My subcommittee is conducting several ongoing investigations and oversight initiatives with
05:26a common thread.
05:27Intelligence analysis and assessments are falling short of the objectivity and integrity standards
05:32required by law.
05:34As Chairman Crawford already stated, it is extremely concerning that the FBI had enough confidence
05:38in their shoddy investigative efforts to conclude that this was, quote, suicide by cop and close
05:44this file.
05:45If you read the report, you will see this is absolutely ridiculous.
05:48Most notably, our report finds that there were no hard facts to support the FBI's suicide
05:53by cop conclusion.
05:55Based on our review of 3,000 plus pages provided to the committee, the only reasonable and quite
06:00frankly, the very obvious determination was that this was an act of domestic terrorism.
06:06Despite those clear and contrary facts indicating domestic terrorism, the FBI's investigative efforts
06:11and intelligence analysis strained to reinforce this predetermined suicide by cop narrative.
06:18For example, to support the FBI analysis that this shooter conducted an opportunistic act of suicide
06:24by cop, the FBI analysis refers to comments by a family member speculating at the possibility
06:31based on a lack of significant number of fatalities.
06:34He didn't think that enough people died for that to be the case.
06:37Aside from being incredibly offensive to the four victims shot by the attacker, this analysis
06:42fails to note that the shooting began, when it began, there were absolutely no uniformed police
06:48officers anywhere around visible to the shooter.
06:51Further, the FBI analysis claimed that the shooter moved toward the gunfire.
06:55There was absolutely no support for this claim in the case file.
06:58The FBI did not conduct critical interviews with victims and eyewitnesses.
07:04As a result, no witnesses were given an opportunity to contradict this theory.
07:08On the other hand, the media did interview the eyewitnesses and they found that the shooter
07:14targeted victims from a concealed position in order to protect himself.
07:18Finally, our report finds that the FBI's press release was used to mislead and influence
07:23public opinion.
07:25For example, the FBI told the public that the photos the shooter had taken at the baseball
07:28field, quote, did not represent surveillance of intended targets.
07:32Yet, the internal official report that we reviewed, the case file states, quote, the FBI assesses
07:39photos may indicate possible probing and casing.
07:43In addition, the FBI used deceptive language to hide the fact that the shooter had a handwritten
07:48manifesto, which was found in his van indicating his real motive.
07:52His real motive was assassinating Republican congressmen to, quote, win back the power of
07:58the people.
07:59Regardless of political party, we must all stand united against political violence of any
08:04kind and condemn this violent attack as what it really was, an act of domestic terrorism.
08:10While I am deeply disappointed by the conduct of the FBI under Acting Director McCabe in
08:142017, I am encouraged by the transparency shown by Director Patel.
08:19I will continue to work with Chairman Crawford to bring integrity, objectivity, and accountability
08:24back to the FBI and the rest of the intelligence community.
08:28Long story short, we have a long way to go to rebuild and reestablish the trust and the
08:32confidence of the American people in the FBI, the DOJ, and our intelligence community.
08:37This starts that process.
08:39And with that, I will turn it over to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan to say a few
08:44words.
08:47Um, suicide by cop.
08:50The guy had a hit list in his pocket.
08:53He had six names, Republican members of Congress on a piece of paper in his pocket.
08:58Comey, McCabe, Ray.
09:00They all knew that it was domestic terrorism, but that didn't fit their narrative.
09:04Because this was the FBI that spied on a presidential campaign.
09:08This was the FBI that said, if you're a parent going to a school board meeting, you need to
09:12be investigated.
09:13This was the FBI that said, if you're a pro-life Catholic, you're an extremist.
09:16This is the FBI who raided President Trump's home.
09:19And this is the FBI who had 26 confidential human sources at the Capitol on January 6th.
09:25And it's the same FBI who can't tell us who planted the pipe bombs, who can't tell us
09:29who leaked the Dobbs opinion, and who can't tell us who put cocaine at the White House.
09:33So we shouldn't be surprised that they reached the wrong conclusion.
09:36They knew what the facts were, as Dr. Jackson just said, and as the chairman just said.
09:43The good news is, as Ronnie indicated, we now have folks running this organization who
09:48are actually focused on doing what the FBI should be doing, on getting the truth to the
09:52American people, on dealing with bad guys.
09:54Kash Patel is doing a great job.
09:56Pam Bondi at the Justice Department, Todd Blanche and their team are doing a great job.
10:00And that's the good news.
10:01So I want to thank the chairman, both the chairman of the subcommittee, the chairman of the full
10:05committee, and all these guys behind me who work on the intel committee for the good work
10:08they did over several years, as you know.
10:11And of course, we really want to thank, on that day, the Capitol Hill Police, who saved our
10:15colleagues' life and did so much good work in a terrible situation.
10:21But for the FBI to give us this baloney, and hang with that crazy story for this long,
10:25but for the work of these folks, we'd have never got the truth.
10:28But them telling us the wrong thing is consistent with all the other BS they did over the last
10:32several years.
10:33Thank goodness we've got an FBI that's now focused on doing the work they're supposed
10:36to do.
10:37Back to the chairman.
10:39I thank the chairman, and I also thank Dr. Jackson, chairman of the subcommittee.
10:45You all have been provided with this report.
10:46I want to clear something up.
10:49This is not an investigation.
10:51This is a report, an assessment, if you will, of the FBI's investigation of that incident.
10:57So it's just important to note.
10:59I know this can be a difficult topic for folks here, particularly on Capitol Hill, but we're
11:04glad you're here today.
11:05And our committee's objective in this report is to address the analytic integrity issues
11:09as we've laid out here before you today.
11:10So with that, we've got time for a question or two if anybody wants to ask one.
11:15Yes, sir.
11:18Would you look at other shootings as well, other mass shootings?
11:25Will you ask the FBI for their case file on those and also produce a report on other shootings?
11:33If it's indicated, certainly.
11:34I think what we've seen here by asking for this, this was eight years in the making.
11:38And obviously this was very political in nature.
11:45As we've indicated here and as this report indicates as well, this was not suicide by cop.
11:53There were some anomalies here that required that we be involved.
11:57And so we've got multiple courses of action we can pursue on any given number of topics.
12:05But we're here today to talk about this particular incident.
12:08Are there any conversations with Leader Scalise about your report and what's his reaction to this?
12:14Yeah, I'm not going to speak to Leader Scalise's personal response, but yes, we did.
12:20I spoke with him at length about this.
12:22He's very well aware.
12:23And as you can imagine, very difficult topic for him to address, but I'll let him do that on his own terms.
12:30But he was advised of this well in advance.
12:35You touched on this at the top, but kind of go a little bit more into detail about how long you guys have been looking for answers, trying to get some assessment on what the FBI was looking at when it was doing its investigation.
12:46Eight years.
12:47Eight years.
12:48We've been looking for eight years.
12:49And it wasn't until back in March when we had our global threats assessment that Director Patel decided that he would comply because, I mean, obviously he understood what it was we were asking for and how long we had waited.
13:03That wasn't the first time we had asked by any means.
13:07There were members that are no longer in Congress that were part of this committee.
13:10There were members that are no longer in Congress that were part of other committees that had been trying for literally years to get that report.
13:17And so this report that you have in your hands today is the culmination of eight years' worth of requests.
13:23And so hats off to Director Patel, but also to our staff here who's done a fantastic job in a very short time to be able to illuminate what the problems were with that report or with that investigation.
13:36One more?
13:37Anybody?
13:38Nope.
13:39All right.
13:40Thank you all.
13:41We appreciate it.
13:42.