discuss the report's findings. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> thank you all for being here. can you hear me ok? i am congressman rick crawford. i have the privilege of chairing the house permanent select committee on intelligence. i want to thank you all for being here today. a lot going on so i won't spend a whole lot of time today. i'm joined by the chairman of the house intelligence subcommittee on oversight and investigation and the judiciary committee chairman, jim jordan. want to thank both of them for their partnership in this effort and most importantly, i want to thank current and former intelligence committee members

and staff who spent a significant time on this investigation to unearth these tremendous findings for the american people. today, we are here to release to the american people majority oversight report regarding the fbi's actions in response to the 2017 shooting of the republican congressional baseball practice. the shooting was a jarring and personal moment for many of us and for those present, it was shocking and violent imposition on what should have been a peaceful and enjoyable morning. even for those not here, it was one of those moments where you will remember exactly where you were when you heard the news. before a discuss the report, i wanted to discuss my appreciation for fbi director patel for his swift follow-through on working with congress paid as some of you may recall, director patel committed to providing the intel committee with the case file at the opening of our worldwide threats hearing last month. before we gaveled that hearing out about two hours later, his team had already delivered the report to our skiff.

this was the culmination of years of requests from the intelligence committee for the fbi to tell the truth regarding its response to the shooting. there is no reasonable or acceptable explanation for why the fbi stonewalled the committee for so long. it had taken so long to get this case filed that many of the members on the field are no longer in congress. today, the house permanent select committee on intelligence released an oversight report based on the case file provided to the committee by direct -- director patel. the committee reviewed based on fbi's records was investigative actions taken and intelligence analysis conducted in report of inclusions on that premeditated, planned shooting targeting republican members of congress at eugene simpson field in alexandria, virginia. our report lays out that the end -- the fbi investigation was inconsistent with proper procedures and was supported by flawed intelligence analysis. it's inclusions -- conclusions failed to follow the facts without completing even the most basic of investigative activities and subsequently, under pressure from congress and

when aligned with the policy, the bureau changed its conclusions although it did not offer any new information and continued to be an incomplete investigative action. analytic integrity and objectivity of the intelligence committee which is required by law has been far too often thrown aside in high-profile events. unfortunately, the committee's review found this case was no different. through our oversight review, we found the fbi prematurely cleared the case to be a suicide by cop, misconstruing information, miss by obstructing congressional oversight. i will let mr. jackson shared details of the report. what i will say is it is alarming that the fbi would approach any investigation within its purview with this complete disregard and lack of investigative integrity. as was said before, my tenure will be marked by rigorous oversight to address the

significant degradation of the intelligence communities investigative and analytic integrity. there have been far too many instances of failure to document the facts and present a conclusion unclouded by institutional bias. the house intelligence committee will continue to hold them accountable for the omission or suppression of key information in some assessments in the far too prevalent failure to respond to congressional oversight. simple he said, this boils down to the fact that americans and their elected leaders need to be able to trust the ic. it is a national security imperative. i'm hopeful that the directors transparency with the committee bodes well if the administration intends to correct the failures and rebuild -- that the american people contrasted thank you, chairman jordan, for your partnership in overseeing activities of the fbi. i want to hand it over to the chairman, dr. ronny jackson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, chairman crawford, for leading this issue and for your support of this oversight review. the american people deserve a

government that is accountable and transparent. oversight of the intelligence community is intended to ensure that those in that community are held to this same standard. at the chairman of the oversight and investigation subcommittee, there is no greater priority than ensuring elements are employed proper investigative -- investigative tradecraft independent of medical considerations and that is why we worked around the clock to review the case file provided by director patel and publish this vital oversight report just weeks later. my subcommittee is conducting several ongoing investigations with a common thread. intelligence analysis and -- falling short of the objectivity and integrity standards required by law. as chairman crawford already stated, it is actually concerning that the fbi had enough confidence in their shoddy investigative efforts to conclude that this was suicide by cop and close this file. if you read the report, you will see this is absolutely ridiculous. most notably, our report finds that there were no hard facts to

support the fbi's suicide by cop conclusion. based on our review of 3000 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. despite the clear and contrary facts indicating domestic terrorism, the fbi's investigative efforts and intelligence analysis strained to reinforce this prevented -- this predetermined narrative. to support the fbi analysis that this shooter conducted an opportunistic act of suicide by cop, the fbi analysis refers to comments by family members speculating at the possibility based on a lack of significant number of fatalities here and he did not think enough people died for that to be the case. aside from being incredibly offensive to the four victims shot by the attacker, this analysis fails to note that the shooting began -- when it began, there were no uniformed police officers anywhere around visible to the shooter and further, the

fbi analysis claimed the shooter moved toward the gunfire. there was no support for this claim in the case file. the fbi did not conclude -- conduct critical interviews with victims and eyewitnesses and as a result, no witnesses were given an opportunity to contradict this theory. on the other hand, the media did interview the eyewitnesses and they found that the shooter targeted victims from a concealed position to protect himself. finally, our report finds the fbi's press release was used to mislead and influence public opinion. for example, the fbi told the public that the voters -- photos they had taken out the baseball field did not represent surveillance of intended targets at the internal official report that we reviewed, the case file states the fbi assesses photos may indicate possible probing and casing. in 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.

his real motive was assassinating republican congressmen to win back the power of the people. regardless regardless of political party, we must all stand against political violence of any kind and condemn this act as what it was, an act of domestic terrorism. while i'm deeply disappointed in the actions of the fbi, am encouraged by the transparency shown by director patel. i will continue to work with director crawford to bring transparency and accountability back to the fbi. we have a long way to go to rebuild and reestablish the trust and confidence of the american people in the fbi, the doj, and our intelligence community. this starts that process. thank you. with that, i will turn it over to judiciary committee chairman jim jordan to say a few words. >> suicide by cop?

guy had a hit list in his pocket . they all knew that it was domestic terrorism, but that did not suit their narrative. this was the fbi that said if you are a parent going to a school board meeting, you need to be investigated. this is the fbi who is that if you are a pro-life catholic, you're an extremist. this is the fbi that rated president trump's home. it is the same fbi who cannot tell us who planted the pipe bombs, cannot tell us who leaked the dobbs opinion. the good news is, we now have folks running this organization who are actually focused on doing what the fbi should be

doing, i am getting through to the american people in dealing with that guys. cash patel -- kash patel is doing a great job. pam bondi doing a great job. i want to thank all these guys behind me that work on the intel committee for the good work they did over several years, as you know, and of course, we really want to thank, on that day, the capitol police who saved our colleague's life and did so much good work in a terrible situation, but for the fbi to give us this baloney and hang on that for so long, thank goodness we have an fbi now focused on doing the work they are supposed to do. >> thank you, jim and pier you all have been provided with this report. i want to clear something up -- this is not an investigation.

this is an assessment of the fbi's investigation of that assessment. i know this can be difficult for folks here on capitol hill, but we are glad you are here today. with that, we have time for a question or two if anybody wants to ask one. yes, sir. >> did you look at other shootings as well and ethically fbi for case files on those as well? >> if it is indicated, certainly. i think it's indicated by asking for this, this was eight years in the making. obviously, this was very political in nature as we have indicated here and this report indicates as well, this was not

suicide by cop. there were some anomalies here, so we have multiple courses of action we can pursue. any given number of topics, but we are here today to talk about this particular case. >> have you spoken with leader scalise about this report, and what was his response? >> we spoke with him at length about this. he is very full aware. this topic is for him to address but i will let him do that on his own terms. >> can you go more into detail about how long you guys have been looking for answers? >> eight years. we have been looking for eight years. it was not until back in march

when we had our global press assessment that director patel decided that he would comply because obviously, he understood what it was we were asking for and how long we had waited. it was not the first time we had asked by any means. there are members that are no longer in congress that were part of this committee, members no longer in congress that were part of other committees that have been trying for literally years to get that report. this report you have in your hands today is the culmination of eight years' worth of requests, so hats off to director patel but also to our staff here who have done a great time in a short time. one more? anybody? no? all right, we appreciate it.