Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman John Rose (TN-06)
Rep. Rose stated in the letter, “More than four weeks have passed since the heinous shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, yet countless mothers and fathers I represent are still awaiting answers.” He argued in the letter that “transparency is essential for those still grieving” and that “discussions of changing state or federal policy are futile without having an accurate account of the shooter’s state of mind, motives, preparation, and planning.”
The verbatim reads:
I was just granted access to many documents relating to the Covenant School shooting tragedy investigation by the FBI.
What I saw would disturb anyone, especially a parent. The documents are a painful reminder of the devastation that victims, including their families and friends, endure every day. Their lives are no doubt forever changed.
Today, as difficult as it was to view this material, it was also important for transparency in government. We must never accept the kind of censorship we saw surrounding this shooter. In no other mass tragedy do we see every piece of evidence shielded from the public.
While we certainly don’t want to enable copycat attempts or glorify mass killers, we also need the full scope of facts in situations such as this to prevent them in the future.
Like many of you, I have long suspected some of this information was shielded from public view because this shooter considered herself to be transgender.
After having read through the evidence, I remain convinced that there is no good justification for keeping most of the evidence from the public square. No reasonable person would object to certain redactions, just as no reasonable person who believes in the First Amendment would condone the widespread censorship we saw from the Biden FBI and frankly Metro Nashville Police. Weeks after this tragedy, I sent two letters calling on then-FBI Director Christopher Wray and Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake to release the documents or provide a written reason as to why not and a timeline on when it would be released.
At the time, there were a lot of discussions surrounding state and federal gun policy. I argued those discussions were premature without first knowing what happened. Countless Tennesseans still want to know about the mental state of the shooter and many other factors that contributed to this tragedy. The report from Metro Nashville, released about a month ago, calls the killer sane. I just read through about 2,000 pages of reasons why that is false.
Less than 100 days after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate, FBI Director Kash Patel is well on his way to fulfilling his goal of restoring confidence in the bureau. As our nation’s top law enforcement agency, trust and transparency are essential. I want to thank him for his leadership on behalf of each and every Tennessee family I represent and beyond.
And I want to thank President Trump for following through on his promise to end woke policies in government and restore trust in our institutions.