Let's start by refreshing your memory on a few facts. Andrew McCabe, the former Deputy Director of the FBI, was fired from his job after a nonpartisan Inspector General determined that he'd lied under oath to federal investigators on multiple occasions. McCabe then started a GoFundMe, playing the victim as he manipulated 'Resistance' voters into sending him hundreds of thousands of their dollars. CNN, the self-professed "facts first" network proceeded to hire him as an analyst -- this man who'd been sacked for not telling the truth, under penalty of perjury. McCabe has used that platform to assail his critics, wrap himself in victimhood, and generally continue his highly political hackery. But perhaps those things were seen as features, not bugs, at CNN, whose editorial agenda broadly aligns with McCabe's political agenda. And perhaps any temporary consternation over the hire would eventually be erased by extraordinary legal and law enforcement analysis. Like this:
Disgraced former FBI agent Andy McCabe on the congressional baseball shooting: “The FBI still doesn’t exactly know what that shooter was up to. They never really uncovered the sort of detailed evidence that laid out a specific plot or an objective." pic.twitter.com/tLH9rQVqtF
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 15, 2021
The anchor correctly notes that the shooter who nearly murdered Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) asked whether the Congressman practicing on the northern Virginia baseball field that day were Republicans before opening fire. Even McCabe calls it "undeniable" that GOP members were the target. But he adds a bizarre note of obfuscation about the FBI not really knowing "what that shooter was up to," or what his true objective was. This seems to align with the Bureau's creepy and outrageous decision not to classify the horror as the politically-motivated attempted mass-assassination that it so clearly was, instead categorizing it as an instance of 'suicide by cop.' Under pressure, the FBI finally re-classified it as an act of domestic terror last month, years after the incident. The agency has been talking about the attack extremely weirdly since it happened. Here's part of an AP report from 2017:
FBI officials gave an overview of the evidence they’ve gathered on Hodgkinson. They said he acted alone and had no connections to terror groups. But they said they had not yet clarified who, if anyone, he planned to target, or why, beyond his animus toward President Donald Trump and the Republicans he felt were ruining the country. It wasn’t even clear whether he had prior plans to attack the baseball practice or whether he just happened upon it the morning of June 14, said Tim Slater, who leads the criminal division of the FBI’s Washington field office. “At this point in the investigation, it appears more spontaneous,” Slater said.
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The "spontaneous" claim is dubious, considering both the profile of the shooter, whose motives are not shrouded in mystery, as well as some of his actions and activities leading up to the bloodbath:
"[The shooter] was an active Democratic activist and Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer who hated Republican members of Congress. He held membership in multiple social media groups strongly opposed to Republicans, such as “The Road to Hell Is Paved With Republicans,” “Join the Resistance Worldwide,” “Donald Trump is not my President,” “Terminate the Republican Party,” “Boycott the Republican Party,” and “Expose Republican Fraud,” among dozens of other groups. He was a voracious consumer of liberal media and believed the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to secure the White House.
More:
The FBI admits [the shooter]: 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...asked “Is this the Republican or Democrat baseball team?” before firing on the Republicans"...
The belatedly discarded "suicide by cop" assertion was always deeply undermined by the Times report that the baseball practices featured little security, as well as the fact that if not for Scalise's detail (assigned to members of leadership), there would have been no police presence at the field that day. This monster obsessively loathed the GOP, had a literal list of Republican members of Congress in his pocket during his spree, and went out of his way to double check that his targets were Republicans before getting his rifle and opening fire on the people he hated. It is disturbing and wild that FBI investigators ingested these facts and proceeded to express bewilderment over motives and intentions. Based on his CNN remarks, it would seem as though McCabe -- once ensconced at the highest levels of the Bureau -- still looks at the extremely unsubtle facts of this case and sees an unsolvable puzzle. Just amazing.
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