Press Releases

HPSCI Members Talk Recent Oversight Efforts on the Republican Study Committee Podcast

Washington, May 16, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C.— This week, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (AR-01), Vice Chair Trent Kelly (MS-01), and Committee member Representative Ben Cline (VA-06) took over the Republican Study Committee’s podcast “Right to the Point.” The Members had a robust conversation about the House Intelligence Committee’s recent report on the FBI’s botched investigation into the 2017 Congressional Baseball shooting and what priorities lay ahead for the Committee this Congress.

Listen here or below.

Key Takeaways

Chairman Crawford: “That’s basically what we discovered once we got the baseball report, after essentially 7 years of requesting…Our colleague Dr. Brad Wenstrup was on the Committee up until last year and every year he would ask for that baseball file and we never got it until Kash Patel got in there and delivered it. In fact, we made the request in the open hearing and by the time we gaveled out he had delivered the report to the SCIF.”

“One of the things we talk about on the Intel Committee is analytic integrity and how important it is. It is foundational to good intelligence and good decision-making. We’re trying to turn the corner as much as we can on that. We certainly want to again thank Director Patel for his forthright approach to responding to our request and we appreciate that.”

Vice Chair Kelly: “[Intelligence] definitely has been politicized over time. Let me just first say that the men and women who are at the lower levels of these agencies are amazing warriors and Americans and they do their great jobs. But you get up to the higher-level management…and they are extremely political. They have extremely political agendas and we have to hold those accountable. I think that Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe…I think they are trying to weed it out.”

“It’s not a Republican or a Democrat thing. It’s not a Conservative or a Liberal thing. It’s literally in the interest of our nation. So these people have to be nonpartisan. Not bipartisan. Nonpartisan. And they have to do the work of the American people in a way that represents and protects our nation.”

Representative Cline: “We saw on the outside, not being on the Committee, just how politicized the intelligence community had become under Joe Biden. And we really wanted to make some changes and this team who has come in, and with you Mr. Chairman, are making those changes and changing the way we focus on the facts and focus on making sure the evidence is there, and that the people see and have a new confidence restored in our intelligence community.”

“[Joining the Committee] has confirmed that there was bias but I am all the more hopeful with the new team that has come in and that they are doing what needs to be done to clean house and restore that confidence for the American people.”

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