The gunman who attempted to kill Donald Trump at an election rally searched the internet for information about the November 1963 shooting of US President John F Kennedy before the attack, the FBI director said on Wednesday.
FBI chief Christopher Wray, testifying before a congressional committee, said the gunman flew a drone over the former president’s scheduled speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, about two hours before he was due to take the stage on July 13.
Wray told members of the House Judiciary Committee that investigators have not determined a motive for the shooting but “we are conducting a thorough investigation because that is one of the key questions for us.”
Trump survived the assassination attempt, but was wounded in his right ear, and a Secret Service sniper killed the suspected gunman – named 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks – in less than 30 seconds after firing eight shots.
“With respect to former President Trump, there is some question as to whether he was hit by a bullet or shrapnel in his ear,” FBI chief Wray said.
Two people at the rally were seriously injured, and a 50-year-old firefighter from Pennsylvania was shot and killed.
Ray said Crooks appeared to make “a lot of discoveries about public figures in general” but that there was no clear pattern to the research.
“Most of the general repositories of information have not revealed anything significant in terms of motive or ideology,” he said.
“Starting approximately July 6, his focus became firmly on former President Trump and this rally,” the FBI chief said, and he registered to attend a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, that day.
He said, “On July 6, he Googled, ‘How far was Oswald from Kennedy?'” The search was a reference to the assassination of Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald.
“That’s obviously significant in terms of his state of mind.”
The FBI director said no evidence had yet emerged that Crooks had any accomplices or co-conspirators and that he appeared to be “alone.”
Crooks was sitting on the roof of a nearby building and opened fire on Trump with an AR-style assault rifle just after 6 p.m. while the Republican White House candidate was addressing a rally in Butler.
– Drone flight –
US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday, a day after she acknowledged the agency had failed in its mission to prevent the assassination attempt.
Ray said Crooks flew the drone over the rally area for about 11 minutes on the day of the attack — between 3:50 and 4:00 p.m.
He said it was not fired directly over the stage, but from about 200 yards (meters) away.
Wray said two “relatively crude” explosive devices were found in the gunman’s car, along with the drone and its controller.
Another explosive device was found at Crooks’ residence.
Ray said the gunman had purchased a ladder the day of the shooting, but it appears he did not use it. Instead, he climbed onto the roof using some mechanical equipment and vertical piping on the ground.
Wray also said Crooks’ AR-style gun had a collapsible stock, which could explain why neither rally-goers nor members of law enforcement had seen him with a weapon before the shooting.
He said Crooks visited the rally site at least three times: about a week before the shooting, for about 70 minutes on the morning of the rally, and again that afternoon.
He purchased 50 rounds of ammunition on the day of the attack and visited a shooting range the day before.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
