9 minutes of terror, 12 months of recovery

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama remembers how the gunman had described him: “63, white hair.”

On a bright morning last June, a man who was distraught over President Donald Trump’s election opened fire on the Republican congressional baseball team here at a public park complex. Four people were shot before Capitol and Alexandria police took him down.

Brooks’ name was one of six listed on a piece of paper that the gunman, James T. Hodgkinson, carried. He was found to have harbored anti-republican sentiment online, and had asked two congressmen that morning for the party affiliation of the team.

Yet in findings shared with lawmakers over the past year, the FBI suggested that Hodgkinson, 66, came to the field to commit suicide in a firefight with police, but said that the bureau did not have incontrovertible proof that he had come to the scene to specifically target the Republicans. A week after the shooting, the FBI said the gunman had most likely acted “spontaneously,” and it has not said publicly that the attack was politically motivated.

The conclusions complicated an already difficult year, one in which players were negotiating their grief with their responsibilities as public officials.

Seated in a conference room in the Capitol in November, the team watched a presentation from FBI agents in disbelief. The findings were a significant break from the players’ collective memory of June 14, when they believed they were targets of a political assault.

Resentment had been bubbling for months. Federal investigators had delivered versions of their presentation in two other meetings: one with those wounded that day and one with the lawmakers identified by the gunman.

“There was disappointment and bewilderment, like, you’re really telling us this? We’re not just getting a report. We lived it,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio said of the reaction in one gathering.

The congressmen had a hard time masking their contempt. Wenstrup told the agents how surprised he was that he had

GABRIELLA DEMCZUK / THE NEW YORK TIMES The Republican congressional baseball team practices early May 9 at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Va. Players on the baseball team returned this spring to the field in Alexandria where they were almost killed by a shooter last June.