The gunman who tried to assassinate former president Donald Trump had searched online days earlier for information about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and used a rifle with a collapsible stock that may have made it easier for him to disguise the weapon before climbing onto a roof, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said Wednesday.
Wray’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee offered the most detailed account to date of the actions of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman who was fatally shot by a Secret Service sniper after opening fire during the July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pa. One rallygoer was killed, two others were critically injured, and Trump suffered a graze wound to his ear.
The rally shooting, two days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, rattled elected officials across the country and raised new fears about political violence in a tumultuous presidential election year. Wray sought to reassure lawmakers that his agency was doing everything possible to understand the gunman’s actions, while also cautioning that other federal investigators would be responsible for assessing the security failure that made the attack possible.
Trump rally shooting
The Washington Post built a 3D model of the site of the attempted assassination at a Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania based on more than 40 videos and photos. The Post’s analysis found that two Secret Service countersniper teams may not have been able to see the shooter at first.
A week before the rally, Crooks searched for answers to “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy,” Wray said — a reference to the assassin who used a rifle to kill President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.
“That’s a search that’s obviously significant in terms of his state of mind,” the FBI director said during the hours-long hearing, which was dominated by questions about the attack on Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. “He was interested in public figures and — I think this is important — starting around July 6 or so, he became very focused on former president Trump and this rally.”
That same day, Wray said, the gunman also registered to attend the outdoor rally.
Crooks, who lived about an hour away in Bethel Park, Pa., fired at Trump from a rooftop just outside the rally security perimeter, using an AR-style rifle. FBI investigators have said so far that the gunman did not appear to have any discernible ideology, suggesting he was not motivated primarily by political animosity.
Wray said the exact nature of Trump’s injury remains uncertain: “There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.”
“There’s a whole lot of work underway and still a lot of work to do,” Wray said. “The shooter may be deceased, but the FBI’s investigation is very much ongoing.”
“We’d love to have a road map that tells us exactly what he’s thinking,” the director continued. “We haven’t found that yet.”
Wray, who was nominated to lead the FBI in 2017 by then-President Trump, avoided discussing the security shortcomings that preceded the attack, saying those issues are under review by an inspector general and an outside group of experts. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday under pressure from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers over the lapses.
Somewhat unusually for the House Judiciary Committee, Wednesday’s hearing included hours focused mostly on the facts and substance of the Trump assassination attempt, rather than the partisan finger-pointing that typically dominates such sessions.
Still, there was some partisanship.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who chairs the committee, is a longtime Trump ally and critic of Wray, the FBI and the Justice Department. He began the hearing by criticizing what he called “the Biden-Harris Justice Department” — an acknowledgment that Vice President Harris is now running for the Democratic nomination after President Biden announced he would not seek a second term.
Before Wray finished testifying, Trump attacked him on social media, saying he should resign not because of anything to do with the shooting, but because the FBI director answered questions about his interactions with Biden by saying he observed nothing awry in the president’s cognitive abilities.
“If that is the case, Director Wray should resign immediately from the FBI, and stop ‘sweet talking’ Congress every time he goes up, which he loves to do,” Trump posted.
Wray told lawmakers that the rifle used in the rally shooting was bought legally in 2013 by the gunman’s father, who sold it to his son in October 2023. The FBI determined that the family had 14 guns, the director said.
The weapon had a collapsible stock, meaning the gunman might have been able to hide it from view while carrying it before the attack. Wray noted that witnesses at the rally reported seeing a man with a gun on the rooftop, but not earlier, which might be explained by the collapsible stock.
The FBI director also confirmed a number of details from the investigation that have been publicly reported, including that there were eight spent bullet casings found near the gunman’s body — indicating that he fired at least that many times.
Before Crooks opened fire, a local police peered over the roof and saw the man in a prone position with a gun, Wray said. Crooks turned to look at the officer, who then ducked down.
“That’s seconds before the event,” Wray said.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said on July 24 that Thomas Matthew Crooks had a drone and explosives in his car during the July 13 Trump rally shooting. (Video: TWP)
The director also described how Crooks apparently used a drone hours before the shooting to examine the area near the rally, but not directly overhead.
“The drone was recovered in his vehicle,” Wray testified. “The shooter was flying the drone around the area, not over the stage. … We think that he was live-streaming, viewing the footage for about 11 minutes, about 200 yards away.”
Two explosive devices were found in the shooter’s car, items that Wray called “relatively crude devices themselves, but they did have the ability to be detonated remotely.”
However, because the remotely controlled devices attached to the homemade bombs were left in the “off” position, Wray said, it appears “that if he had tried to detonate those devices from the roof, it would not have worked.”
Technical experts at the FBI lab in Quantico, Va., were able to crack open the gunman’s phone within two days of the attack. While they found some evidence of interest, the device did not provide an explanation for his motive, people familiar with the investigation have said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the ongoing case.
The gunman used some encrypted messaging applications, which Wray said have “unfortunately now become very commonplace” in FBI investigations, as popular messaging software often includes encryption.
Asked whether the FBI believed there were any accomplices or co-conspirators in the shooting, Wray answered, “Not at this time, but again the investigation is ongoing.”
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