The FBI believes that the man who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump posted antisemitic and anti-immigrant content on a social-media account, pointing to some of the first indications of the political beliefs of the shooter.
Testifying before a joint hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary committees on Tuesday, Paul Abbate, the deputy director of the FBI, provided new details about the investigation into Thomas Matthew Crooks, who shot Trump at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pa.
“Something just very recently uncovered that I want to share is a social-media account which is believed to be associated with the shooter in about the 2019-2020 time frame,” Abbate said. “There were over 700 comments posted from this account. Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes, to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature.”
Crooks, 20, killed one man, seriously injured two others and grazed Trump’s ear. Abbate said that while the FBI has treated the incident as an attempted assassination and act of domestic terrorism from the outset, the shooter’s motive remains unknown.
The apparent failure of law enforcement to prevent the shooting prompted the resignation last week of U.S. Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle after she faced withering, bipartisan criticism from House lawmakers.
One criticism of Cheatle was that in the nine days between the shooting and her resignation, she had not visited the crime scene. Acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe, who also testified at Tuesday’s hearing, said one of his first acts on taking up the role was to go to the rooftop crime scene.
“I laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight,” he said. “What I saw made me ashamed. As a career law-enforcement officer and a 25-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”
In his testimony, Abbate described Crooks’s actions leading up to the shooting and how law enforcement had identified him as a suspicious person nearly two hours before he fired eight shots from a rooftop near the rally, including the one that struck the former president.
“On July 6, the shooter registered to attend the rally and performed a search for ‘How far was Oswald from Kennedy?’” Abbate said. “On July 7, the shooter traveled from his home to the Butler farm show grounds and remained there for approximately 20 minutes. We assess this shows advanced planning and reconnaissance on his part.”
“The first reported sighting of the shooter by local law enforcement was at approximately 4:26 p.m. At approximately 5:10 p.m., the shooter was again identified by local law enforcement as a suspicious person around the AGR building.”
“Recently discovered video from a local business shows the shooter pulling himself up onto the AGR building rooftop at approximately 6:06 p.m.,” he continued. “At approximately 6:08 p.m., the subject was observed on the roof by local law enforcement. At approximately 6:11 p.m., a local police officer was lifted to the roof by another officer, saw the shooter and radioed that he was armed with ‘a long gun.’ Within approximately the next 30 seconds, the shots were fired.”
Multiple investigations into the assassination attempt, including a bipartisan House task force whose members were announced on Monday, remain ongoing.