WASHINGTON (AP) — Assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump A senior FBI official said Wednesday that the suspect had searched the internet for events surrounding both President Trump and President Joe Biden, looked up explosives information from the past five years and viewed the Pennsylvania rally where the suspect shot someone last month as an “opportunity.”
Investigators, who conducted nearly 1,000 interviews, still don’t know why. Thomas Matthew Crookes, age 20 Investigators believe he shot Trump during a campaign rally in July, but they say he had a “thorough plan of attack” that included looking into campaign activities involving both current and former presidents, particularly in western Pennsylvania.
An FBI analysis of the suspect’s online search history revealed “a sustained and detailed effort to plan an attack against some kind of event, with numerous events and targets being considered,” Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, told reporters Wednesday in the latest in a series of investigative reports.
Once it was announced that a Trump rally would be held in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, “he became very focused on that particular event and saw it as an opportunity,” Rojek said. In the days leading up to the rally, Crooks had searched the Internet for information about where the rally would be held, including “where will Trump speak at the Butler Agricultural Show,” “Butler Agricultural Show podium” and “Butler Agricultural Show photos.”
The FBI said Crooks made more than 60 internet searches related to Biden and Trump in the 30 days before the attack, including looking up the dates of the Democratic and Republican national conventions. FBI Director Christopher Wray previously said: A week before the shooting, Crooks Googled “how far was Oswald from Kennedy?”
This is an apparent reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot and killed President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
The new details further paint a new portrait of Crooks as a highly intelligent and solitary man. Investigators say he had an eerie interest in explosives, violence and famous people in the years before the shootings, but that online searches of both Democrats and Republicans have frustrated efforts to pinpoint a simple political motive or determine why Trump himself was targeted.
“While we have some clarity about the shooter’s state of mind, we can’t make any definitive statements about a motive at this time,” Rojek said. The FBI also has not found anyone who knew about Crooks’ planned shootings or with whom he conspired.
The FBI found explosives in the suspect’s car and home, and investigators say internet searches revealed he had been researching information about bomb-making materials, including remote detonator mechanisms, since at least 2019.
The F.B.I. Trump, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, was reportedly hit by a bullet or shrapnel in the ear during the assassination attempt, in which Crooks fired eight shots from an AR-style rifle, killing one rally attendee and wounding two before the gunman was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper on the roof of a building less than 150 yards away.
Also Wednesday, the FBI released photos of the rifle used by Crooks, a backpack and an improvised explosive device found in his car.
