(Yelp)
An “assassination list” was found on the body of James T. Hodgkinson, the gunman who opened fire at a congressional baseball game, according to The Daily Caller.
In an exclusive report, The Daily Caller reported that the shooter “had a list of Republican names” in his pocket when he was shot dead at the scene after wounding five people in the rampage.
Written on notepad paper, the assassination list contained the names of Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan and Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, according to The Daily Caller. LifeNews noted that the congressmen on the hit list were all pro-life. It’s not clear whether other names were also on the assassination list.
Rep. Trent Franks.
Duncan actually spoke to the killer at the scene but was not shot, despite his reported inclusion on an assassination hit list. Duncan told the news media that the killer had come up to him and another representative before the shooting and asked whether Republicans or Democrats were practicing. Upon being told that Republicans were practicing, Hodgkinson thanked the men and went on his way.
Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks was at the baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, when Hodgkinson, a former Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer, opened fire. However, Brooks was not injured. He later spoke widely to the news media, decribing the killer as a middle-aged, white male who was “going after elected officials.”
Mo Brooks. (Getty)
“The only weapon I had was a baseball bat, and that’s not the kind of fight you want to engage in,” Brooks said after the shooting, according to U.S. News and World Report.
The shooting seriously injured Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, who is in critical condition after multiple surgeries for a gunshot wound to the hip. He’s the U.S. House whip. Because of his position in House leadership, Capitol police officers Crystal Griner, David Bailey, and Henry Cabrera were at the scene. Griner and Bailey rushed the gunman, and Cabrera shot at him from behind a dugout. Hodgkinson was killed at the scene.
Lobbyist Matt Mika, Griner, and congressional staffer Zack Barth were also struck by the gunman’s bullets.
Rep. Jeff Duncan.
Hodgkinson was a home inspector from Belleville, Illinois, who had moved to Virginia, his wife told ABC News, about two months before the shooting, and he was living in his van. He’d grown increasingly angry about the political process, directing his venom on Facebook and Twitter toward President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, including once posting a negative cartoon toward Scalise. Hodgkinson had also protested Republican policies, and he wrote letters to the editor to his local newspaper condemning them while extolling the virtues of Bernie Sanders on social media.
Read more about Hodgkinson’s victims here:
