FBI Director Kash Patel on Wednesday said that there is no evidence that Thomas Crooks, the man who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump at a 2024 Pennsylvania rally, had communicated with anyone about the incident.
After a review of 27 devices belonging to Crooks, FBI investigators found he was not “speaking to any other human beings other than his parents” with whom he lived in Pennsylvania, Patel said at a congressional hearing, according to Patel.
Earlier this week, Attorney General Todd Blanche also commented on reports citing FBI documents that provided more details about Crooks, which was referenced in a Truth Social post made by President Donald Trump earlier this week.
Trump called the assassination attempt a “Democrat plot” and said that case information related to the shooting “was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone.” He also criticized former FBI Director Christopher Wray and indicated he should face retribution for how the assassination attempt was handled.
Blanche said at a White House press conference on Tuesday that what Trump posted about “is new information about the shooter and about his background, about his history, and that’s stuff that we didn’t know before. So, that’s the new information.”
“As far as the president’s frustration with the FBI, I was there with him. I lived it,” he added.
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“I mean, you have a situation where it’s not really clear what the leadership of the FBI was doing in the weeks and months ahead of the attempted assassination to protect President Trump.
“That’s the same organization that was simultaneously trying to put him in prison until he dies. So, his frustration and concern about what the former director was doing is something that is not new. He’s said that for a very long time.”
Officials said Crooks fired multiple shots from a rooftop at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where then-Republican presidential candidate Trump was speaking, killing firefighter Corey Comperatore, injuring two other attendees, and striking Trump in the ear. A Secret Service counter-sniper team fatally shot Crooks soon after he fired the shots.
More than two years after the shooting, Crooks remains an elusive figure. The FBI has not provided any details about a possible motive as the 20-year-old shooter left behind a very small social media and online footprint.
There has been no indication that Crooks left behind a manifesto or writings for why he targeted Trump.
Blanche added Tuesday that Patel, as FBI director, has “undertaken a Herculean effort to go through all the documents and understand what was missed, if anything, and to provide anything that hadn’t come forward to the American people” about the case.
In September 2024, two months after the Butler shooting, a man was arrested for attempting to assassinate Trump while he was golfing at his Florida course. Ryan Routh, now 60, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.