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