The gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump made a “sustained, detailed effort” to attack some type of large gathering before deciding to target the Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Pennsylvania in July, FBI officials said Wednesday.
FBI officials said Thomas Crooks, 20, searched more than 60 times for information about the Republican presidential nominee and his then-rival, Democratic President Joe Biden, before registering for Trump’s rally in early July.
“What we saw was … a sustained, detailed effort to plan attacks around certain events, meaning he monitored multiple events or targets,” Kevin Rojek, the top FBI official in western Pennsylvania, told reporters by telephone.
Rojek said that when Trump’s rally was announced in early July, Crooks became “super focused” on it and “saw it as an opportunity.”
Rojek said the FBI has not yet determined what motivated Crooks to try to assassinate Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Rojek said that Crookes’ computer activity showed he was interested in a mix of different ideologies, but that it did not clearly indicate he was motivated by any particular left-wing or right-wing viewpoint.
FBI officials said they found no evidence that Crooks had acted in concert with others, or had been instructed by any foreign power.
There was no trace of illegal drugs or alcohol in his body.
The assassination attempt has raised questions about how Crooks was able to climb a nearby building and fire eight shots at the former president before being killed by a Secret Service sharpshooter. Several congressional and government investigators are probing the security measures of the incident.
Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating Crooks himself. Officials said they have gained some insight into his mindset, though they still don’t know what motivates him.
FBI officials said Crooks had been searching Trump’s campaign events as early as September 2023, and began searching both candidates’ campaign events around his residence in western Pennsylvania in April.
He said he also researched the dates of both the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions.
In the days before the July 13 rally, he researched information about the site, including where Trump would speak and details of a company that owned a nearby building where he later fired eight shots, one of which grazed Trump’s ear. Video evidence shows that Crooks was on the building’s roof for only six minutes.
Crooks, who left several explosive devices in his car, had discovered information about bomb components as early as 2019.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
