The FBI revealed on Wednesday numerous online searches that former President Donald Trump‘s would-be assassin performed in the weeks and months before carrying out a shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, including searches as far back as last year for Trump’s campaign events.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek said in a call with reporters that while Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, targeted both Trump and President Joe Biden, he searched for Trump’s campaign events as early as September 2023.
Beginning in April 2024, Crooks searched for campaign events for Trump and Biden.
The bureau observed a “sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some event,” Rojek said, adding that when the Trump rally on July 13 was announced, Crooks “became hyperfocused on that specific event and looked at it as a target of opportunity.”
The FBI also unveiled crime scene photos on Wednesday, including images of Crooks’s gun, book bag, the air conditioning unit that the FBI believes Crooks used to hoist himself onto a roof at the rally, and two of the improvised explosive devices Crooks made and stored in his vehicle.
The FBI Pittsburgh Field Office has been leading the investigation into Crooks since the shooting happened a month and a half ago.
During the attack, Crooks was able to access the roof of a building in close proximity to Trump and remain there for six minutes before firing eight rounds into the rally crowd, the FBI said. Crooks killed one person and seriously injured two. A bullet narrowly missed Trump and instead grazed his ear.
The bureau has given periodic updates on its progress, each time emphasizing that while it had an increasingly detailed understanding of Crooks’s background and state of mind during the attack, his motive for attempting to kill Trump remained unclear.
Rojek again said Wednesday that while the FBI’s investigation is active, the bureau has not established a motive. Crooks acted alone, and there is no evidence of any conspirators, domestic or foreign, Rojek said.
The FBI already knew Crooks aimed to assassinate Trump, in part because agents found that on July 6, the same day he registered to attend the Trump rally, his computer showed that he researched President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Crooks specifically searched for the distance between Kennedy and his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, the computer showed.
Rojek revealed on Wednesday that in the week leading up to the shooting, Crooks also searched:
- “Where will Trump speak from at Butler Farm Show”
- “Butler Farm Show podium”
- “Butler Farm Show photos”
- “AGR international”
- “Ballistic calculator”
- “Weather in Butler”
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In the month before the rally, Crooks researched when both the Republican and Democratic national conventions were taking place, Rojek said, adding that Crooks had no clear political ideology.
The computer searches underscore how calculated Crooks’s attack was. The FBI’s revelations signal that he could have been planning a shooting event for more than a year. The FBI said in a previous update that Crooks used aliases to make 25 gun-related purchases online beginning in the spring of 2023 and that he bought material to build explosive devices, three of which were uncovered by the FBI in Crooks’s car and home after the attack.
This story is developing.
