Federal investigators are working “tirelessly” to determine how a would-be assassin nearly ended former President Donald Trump’s life, FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers Wednesday.
“The shooter may be deceased, but the FBI investigation is very much ongoing,” Wray said at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.
The director disclosed new details about suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks and how he planned the attack that killed one rally-goer, critically wounded two others, and pierced the former president’s right ear.
Wray noted that agents are still working to identify a motive for the shooting, though Crooks’s phone has provided some insight.
In addition to searches for various public officials, the 20-year-old gunman also researched the details of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on July 6—just one week before the shooting.
His Google search: “How far away was [Lee Harvey] Oswald from Kennedy?”
Investigators believe Crooks first visited the site of the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally one week before the shooting, and that he also returned for one hour on the morning of the event.
At 1:30 p.m., he purchased 50 rounds of ammunition. At 3:50 p.m., he was back on-site, flying a drone roughly 200 yards from the stage where Trump would later deliver his remarks.
Agents later recovered that drone from his car.
Crooks also purchased a ladder prior to the shooting, but that ladder was not found at the rally site. Instead, investigators believe Crooks scaled the AGR building—from which he fired on Trump and others—using vertical piping attached to the building and “mechanical equipment” on the ground.
The day before the rally, agents think Crooks visited a shooting range, where he “probably” shot the same AR-style rifle he used in the assassination attempt—a gun he purchased from his father.
Wray advised that “easily 700” FBI agents are involved in the ongoing investigation, including some stationed overseas.
So far, they have uncovered no evidence to suggest Crooks had accomplices in his mission.
You can see a ten foot ladder near where he was found,don’t tell me they have air brushed it out.I said all along why did he scale the building on the opposite side to the ladder.Don’t think it was him but a lookalike .He lifted his head when first seen looked like no glasses and why would you lift your head only for people to say it was Crooks.Then when they show you a photo of him further along the roof he seems to be wearing glasses.Why was his weapon 4 to 6 feet away from his body,the blood trail went straight down from him proving he didn’t roll from his weapon.I think there were more Crooks there than Crooks at the site.It also looks like the security agencies could lie straight in bed.
Stop spreading this bull so long. We know an assassination was in the future for Trump because the lowly Democrats tried for years to get him with made up bull and all kinds of nonsense. I suspected this would happen and it did. Thanks to God, they failed again. Wake up and stop trying to make it look like a lone shooter. It was organized and who listens to Wray anymore.