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GOP rep: Baseball practice shooter contacted office 10 times

Greg Nash

Rep. Michael Bost (R-Ill.) said the gunman who opened fire Wednesday at a congressional Republican baseball practice in Virginia had contacted his office 10 times in the past.

“He has actually contacted our office 10 times. Nine of those times were through email, one was through a telephone call,” Bost said on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” on Thursday. 

The shooter, who died at a hospital after being shot by police, has been identified as James Hodgkinson of Belleville, Ill., which lies within Bost’s home district.

“We keep really good records. So we go back, and understand there is hundreds of thousands of communications we get,” the congressman said.

{mosads}Bost said his staff looked through each of the times Hodgkinson had contacted his office.

“I thought, was there some kind of sign? Was there anything? He didn’t agree with us. He didn’t agree with me and my positions. But nowhere was it one of those, ‘Oh, my gosh, there’s a problem here,’ and we’ve had those over the years, and we’ve contacted Capitol Police,” he said.

Hodgkinson regularly criticized Republicans and President Trump in social media posts.

Various members of Congress have received threatening messages after Wednesday’s attack.

The office of Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) reported receiving a message saying, “One down, 216 to go,” after the shooting.

Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) said several Democratic House lawmakers were at the receiving end of threatening phone calls saying, “You guys are next.”

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