Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 4:17am

FBI Pretends That Political Assassin Wasn’t

 

Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist tells us that the FBI has decided that would be political assassin James T. Hodgkinson was merely a victim of poor anger management:

 

 

The FBI admits that Hodgkinson:

vociferously raged against Republicans in online forums,
had a piece of paper bearing the names of six members of Congress,
was reported for doing target practice outside his home in recent months before moving to Alexandria,
had mapped out a trip to the DC area,
took multiple photos of the baseball field he would later shoot up, three days after the New York Times mentioned that Republicans practiced baseball at an Alexandria baseball field with little security,
lived out of his van at the YMCA directly next door to the baseball field he shot up,
legally purchased a rifle in March 2003 and 9 mm handgun “in November 2016,”
modified the rifle at some point to accept a detachable magazine and replaced the original stock with a folding stock,
rented a storage facility to hide hundreds of rounds of ammunition and additional rifle components,
asked “Is this the Republican or Democrat baseball team?” before firing on the Republicans,
ran a Google search for information on the “2017 Republican Convention” hours before the shooting,
and took photos at high-profile Washington locations, including the east front plaza of the U.S. Capitol and the Dirksen Senate Office.

We know from other reporting that the list was of six Republican Freedom Caucus members, including Rep. Mo Brooks, who was present at the practice.

So what does the FBI decide this information means? Well, the takeaway of the briefing was characterized well by the Associated Press headline about it: “FBI: Gunman who shot congressman had no target in mind.” The Associated Press reported the FBI:

believes the gunman “had no concrete plan to inflict violence” against Republicans,
“had not yet clarified who, if anyone, he planned to target, or why,”
believes he may have just “happened upon” the baseball game the morning of June 14, and that the attack appeared “spontaneous,”
are unclear on the “context” of Hodgkinson’s note with six names of members of Congress,
does not believe that photographs of the baseball field or other sites “represented surveillance of intended targets,” and
“painted a picture of a down-on-his-luck man with few future prospects.”

In fact, USA Today went with “FBI offers portrait of troubled Alexandria shooter with ‘anger management problem’” for their headline, since that’s what the FBI emphasized in the briefing.

The FBI also said there was no “nexus to terrorism” in the attempted mass assassination of Republican leadership by a Democratic activist. The claim that tourists take pictures of a a completely unremarkable baseball field in a tiny neighborhood also seems odd, particularly when the pictures were taken a few days after The New York Times reported that Republican members of Congress practice baseball there with little security. Someone going by the moniker “Yoenis Cespedes” wrote, “As a guy who could arguably be called a reconnaissance manager when he was in the Army, this is reconnaissance.”

Oh, and here’s a little tidbit that didn’t interest many people in the media beyond a brief mention in the last paragraphs:

Hodgkinson also visited the office of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose campaign he had worked on as a volunteer, and was in email contact with the two Democratic senators from his home state.

As one Twitter wag put it, “You’d think “Congressional Shooter Visited Actual Capitol Hill Offices” would be kinda a big deal and you’d be wrong.”

I wrote last week that the media’s big problem right now is that everyone in the country knows how they’d be covering the shooting if the parties were reversed. Can you imagine if a shooter had visited the office of Sen. Ted Cruz and corresponded with two Republican senators? Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) gave emails to investigators last week but it was treated mostly as local news.

With trust in institutions at historic lows, and the bureaucracy beset by fears of politicization, the FBI made a poor decision to gaslight Americans by claiming that the assassination attempt wasn’t premeditated terrorism but a spontaneous “anger management” problem.

 

Go here to read the rest.  Who are you going to believe:  your lying eyes or the FBI?  Say what you will about J. Edgar Hoover, he kept the FBI firmly under his control and made sure it did not become a tool for one party.  Now the FBI has taken on the political coloration of most agencies in Washington and can be depended upon to carry water for the Democrat party.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
5 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 2:56am

I actually think the term “living wage” is a terrible term. After all, what is a living wage? Many would say that it is a wage that enables a worker to support himself and his family. But a living wage for a man with a wife and three kids to support is going to be different than a living wage for a single man with only himself to support. So, by this logic an employer would have to pay the former more than the latter regardless of any difference in productivity. This is clearly untenable. But that term gets thrown around even by some conservatives.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 7:18am

I’m never quite sure if that’s what the officialdom said, or if that’s the fiction the reporters and editors have elected to run with. If it’s not the latter, I’d say it’s remarkable how thoroughly Holder and Lynch managed to ruin the agency.

What’s pathetic is the degree to which federal law enforcement consists of a string of ineffective bureaucracies. See the Secret Service, which couldn’t prevent some random dude from invading the White House and is amply populated with officers who think little of cheating on their wives with Colombian hookers. See Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which may be able to defend itself by providing evidence that they’re better at their jobs than their predecessor agency.

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 9:43am

I’m with Art on this– why would we trust the AP on this?

Dale Price
Dale Price
Monday, June 26, AD 2017 9:12am

There’s a meme marching about bragging about how few Democratic administration members have been indicted as compared to Republicans. With weaponized decision-making like this, it is small wonder.

Discover more from The American Catholic

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Scroll to Top