FBI, Secret Service butchered the Thomas Crooks – Latest News
We are all owed a higher rationalization from the FBI and Secret Service about the tried assassination of Donald Trump 16 months in the past at a marketing campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
The president himself stays unhappy with the solutions he’s been given about the circumstances resulting in 20-year-old Thomas Crooks climbing on a rooftop with an AR-15 type rifle and firing eight instances at Trump, narrowly lacking his head however hitting his ear.
Thomas Crooks enjoying with a gun in his bed room. Candace Owens / YouTube
The clips are one of the restricted insights into Crooks and his attainable motives in making an attempt to assassinate Trump.
Crooks was shot lifeless by a Secret Service sniper, however not earlier than he killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore, 50, and significantly wounded David Dutch, 58, and James Copenhaver, 75, who had been sitting in the bleachers behind Trump.
There is one thing very fallacious with the official story and that invitations conspiracy theories.
The president demanded solutions months in the past. A person was murdered. What is happening?
Then-FBI Director Chris Wray instructed Congress after the July 13, 2024, assault that the bureau had discovered nothing in Crooks’ online historical past that pointed to a motive or political ideology.
Per week later, Wray’s deputy Paul Abbate instructed Congress that feedback posted on one of Crooks’ social media accounts “appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature.”
Then-FBI Director Chris Wray instructed Congress after the July 13, 2024, assault that the bureau had discovered nothing in Crooks’ online historical past that pointed to a motive or political ideology. ZUMAPRESS.com
Thanks to an enterprising source who uncovered Crooks’ hidden digital footprint, we will see that Abbate misled Congress by omission, as a result of he ignored an whole part of Crooks’ online interactions from January to August 2020 when he did an ideological backflip and went from rabidly pro-Trump to rabidly anti-Trump after which went darkish, by no means seeming to post again.
Among the 17 accounts uncovered by our source had been ones on YouTube, Snapchat, Venmo, Zelle, GroupMe, Discord, Google Play, Quizlet, Chess.com and Quora.
The online interactions from when Crooks was aged 15 to 17 give us a higher understanding of his evolution into an murderer, and invite more questions on what — or who — reversed his ideology.
“The danger Crooks posed was visible for years in public online spaces,” says the source. “His radicalization, violent rhetoric and obsession with political violence were all documented under his real name. The threat wasn’t hidden.”
The president, who heroically survived the attempt on his life, demanded solutions months in the past. AP
The official narrative claimed he acted alone and with out a clear motive, ideology or digital footprint.
Yet the source discovered reams of data that reveals Crooks “was not merely some unknowable lone actor . . . He left a digital path of violent threats, extremist ideology and admiration for mass violence. He spoke brazenly of political assassination, posted beneath his actual identify and was even flagged by different customers who talked about law enforcement of their replies. Despite this, his account remained lively for more than 5 years — and was solely eliminated the day after the capturing.
“None of this online activity was referenced in the final congressional report released in December 2024, making this even more troubling,” the source mentioned.
Starting with Crooks’ cellphone quantity, the source used instruments out there to non-public investigators and web archives to uncover the murderer’s very seen online persona.
The official narrative claimed Crooks acted alone and with out a clear motive, ideology or digital footprint. James Copenhaver
Crooks’ most prolific exercise was on YouTube, with 737 public feedback. The account “Tomcrooks2178” (seen to different customers as Tom Crooks) was created on Jan. 14, 2019, and suspended on July 14, 2024, the day after the Butler assault, for violating YouTube’s coverage on violent prison organizations.
Political 180
Crooks’ trajectory from pro- to anti-Trump is obvious. He referred to President Trump as “the literal definition of Patriotism,” in a remark at 1:17 a.m. on July 20, 2019.
He additionally issued a number of focused threats towards the Democratic congressional representatives in “The Squad.”
“I hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman who don’t deserve anything this country [sic] has given them,” he wrote at 8.18 a.m. on July 20, 2019.
“MURDER THE DEMOCRATS,” he wrote in all-caps on Dec. 12, 2019.
But in early 2020, Crooks’ online conduct flipped 180 levels and he turned very essential of Trump, Fox News and Republican complaints about mail-in voting.
Crooks’ trajectory from pro- to anti-Trump is obvious. Anadolu through Getty Images
The first time he criticized Trump was on Jan. 23, 2020, when he commented on a video of law professor Jonathan Turley speaking about Trump’s first impeachment.
“Keep in mind the only reason we may know about any of this is because of Trump’s stupidity,” Crooks wrote.
He began describing Trump supporters as a cult: “How can you people call others sheep, but you are do [too] brainwashed to realize how dumb you are,” he wrote on Feb. 26, 2020. “I mean literally you guys sound like a cult at times.”
The similar day he described Trump as “racist.”
By April 2020, Crooks was continuously criticizing Trump’s pandemic response, saying he was “too slow and everything he’s doing now should have been done.”
Through the summer season of 2020, Crooks’ online rhetoric turned more and more radical and violent.
On Aug. 5, 2020, Crooks wrote: “IMO the solely approach to battle the gov is with terrorism type assaults, sneak a bomb into an important building and set it off earlier than anybody sees you, observe down any important people/politicians/army leaders and many others and attempt to assassinate them.
Crooks was shot lifeless by a Secret Service sniper. Obtained by NY Post
“Any sort of head-to- head fight is suicide and even ambush/surprise attacks likely aren’t going to end well. A large portion of the war will also be propaganda/information wars — both sides will want people to join them, and a big deciding factor in wars is often which side has more popular support for them,” he wrote.
Among the 17 accounts uncovered by our source, just one, on PayPal, was operated beneath an alias: “Rod Swanson.”
Rod Swanson is a former senior FBI agent who was the chief of investigations for the state of Nevada during the 2017 Las Vegas mass capturing.
He additionally beforehand served on FBI Director Robert Mueller’s protecting element and as a firearms teacher in Pennsylvania.
Contacted by cellphone on the weekend, Swanson mentioned he was shocked his identify was linked to Crooks.
“I don’t know anything about that kid or his family,” he mentioned. “I don’t even use PayPal. I don’t even know how to set up a PayPal account.”
He mentioned he retired from the FBI in Vegas in 2016 and went to work for the Nevada lawyer basic from September 2015 to March 2020. He now works in the oil and fuel business in Houston.
Furry fetish?
When instructed of Crooks’ online threats, he mentioned there was no method the FBI wouldn’t bear in mind of the teenager.
“No matter how ridiculous the allegation, no matter if it’s COVID or not, somebody is going to knock on somebody’s door,” Swanson mentioned. “If they investigated that kid there’s a record of it and there’s an assessment that some leader made that this was not a threat or it rose to a level and they did something else.”
He additionally mentioned that “if the FBI had that information [about his name on the PayPal account], I can’t even imagine they would not have reached out to me right away.”
Given Crooks’ sample of monitoring high-profile mass shootings and violent occasions, the source believes it’s believable that he adopted Swanson’s identify as a non-public joke.
Like alleged Charlie Kirk murderer Tyler Robinson, Crooks seems to have been curious about “furries” and exploring gender identification.
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He described himself with the pronouns “they/them” on the platform DeviantArt, which is one of the greatest online hubs for “furry” artwork and the “furry” neighborhood. (A furry is somebody who has an curiosity in anthropomorphized animal characters, typically as a sexual fetish.)
Two accounts linked to Crooks’ main e-mail had been discovered on DeviantArt, beneath usernames “epicmicrowave” and “theepicmicrowave.” The account suggests he had an obsession with scantily clad cartoon characters sporting muscle-bound male our bodies and feminine heads.
Pals with Neo-Nazis
One of the people Crooks interacted with online was “Willy Tepes,” a member of Norwegian neo-Nazi group the Nordic Resistance Movement, which has since been designated a terrorist group by the State Department.
Tepes inspired violence and Crooks’ extremism, utilizing a Maoist phrase, “political power comes from the barrel of a gun,” which Crooks repeated a number of instances.
In one touch upon Oct. 5, 2025, more than a 12 months after Butler, Tepes commented to a different person that he had been contacted by each Russian and American intelligence.
Requests for data from the FBI have been rebuffed — together with beneath Director Kash Patel. Ron Sachs/CNP / SplashNews.com
“People who ask you to contact them when they just as easily could contact you, are Feds. This is how they avoid entrapment. Both American and Russian intelligence does this. I have chatted to both,” he claimed.
Shortly after his interactions with Tepes, Crooks disappeared offline.
Did his brush with the Norwegian and his own violent rhetoric win him a go to from the FBI or the Secret Service?
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If not, why not? If so, why has it not been disclosed?
The FBI refused to remark when requested on Sunday whether or not Crooks was ever investigated, visited or in a roundabout way dropped at the consideration of the company earlier than he tried to assassinate Trump, or whether or not there was an FBI file on Crooks earlier than Butler.
The FBI additionally refused to touch upon why it has not been forthcoming on congressional oversight requests.
Wray instructed Congress on July 24 2024, 11 days after the capturing, that the bureau “did not have any [prior] information about the shooter” and that “he was not in our holdings before the shooting.” He mentioned the FBI ran a seek for Crooks by means of its databases, and he was not discovered.
Susan Crabtree, an investigative reporter for RealClearPolitics who has damaged a number of tales about the failures at Butler, says her key USSS source from the 2020 time period “told me that Crooks was not a person of record at the USSS in 2020 — and wasn’t known to USSS until Butler.”
Crooks seems to have been curious about “furries” and exploring gender identification. through Chuck Grassley’s Office
Something doesn’t add up.
Classified information
Wray had been closely criticized after the Parkland college capturing as a result of the FBI didn’t act after being repeatedly warned about the shooter Nicholas Cruz — that he had weapons, had threatened people, exhibited erratic conduct and may perform a college capturing.
Was Wray making an attempt to keep away from being blamed for an additional atrocity on his watch? Is that why he downplayed Trump’s damage when he testified to Congress a week after Butler and falsely urged the now-president had not been struck by a bullet however by shrapnel from his podium?
If the Secret Service had develop into conscious of Crooks’ anti-Trump rhetoric in 2020 during Trump’s presidency, protocol is that they’d have decided if he was a menace and off-loaded to the FBI to take over the investigation.
It is tough to imagine the FBI and/or Secret Service missed Crooks.
We don’t know what occurred as a result of the Secret Service after- motion report is classed. The solely our bodies that might take a look at it are the intelligence committees in Congress which up to now have proven little curiosity.
A prison investigation of a Presidential assassination or tried assassination falls beneath the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Therefore, any feedback on the subject matter would come from the FBI.
Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) requests for data from the FBI have been rebuffed — together with beneath Director Kash Patel.
Johnson needed to problem a subpoena this July on the first anniversary of the Butler assault and complained that he had been “stonewalled” by the FBI and the USSS in his efforts to request security digicam footage, forensic stories and different paperwork associated to the Crooks case.
President Trump and people close to him are skeptical about the official story and query requested how the impoverished mother and father of Crooks, who needed to ask for money from neighbors to pay for his or her son’s funeral, may afford to rent a white shoe law firm, Quinn Logue out of Pittsburgh.
It is tough to imagine the FBI and/or Secret Service missed Crooks. The query is, what did they do about him?
