The FBI disclosed alarming details regarding the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally. The assailant, Thomas Matthew Crooks from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, viewed the event as a ‘target of opportunity.’ The incident took place at an outdoor rally in Butler, where Crooks, positioned on the roof of a manufacturing plant over 130 yards away from the stage, fired shots that grazed Trump’s ear. FBI officials revealed that the 20-year-old had meticulously planned a “sustained, detailed effort” to attack a major gathering of some sort before deciding to target the Republican presidential candidate at a Pennsylvania rally in July. FBI officials said Thomas Crooks searched more than 60 times for details about Trump and his then-rival, Democratic President Joe Biden, before registering for the Trump rally.
“We saw … a sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some events, meaning he looked at any number of events or targets,” Kevin Rojek, the FBI’s top official in western Pennsylvania, said in a telephone briefing to reporters on Wednesday, according to Al-Jazeera.
Rojek further said that Crooks became “hyper-focused” on the Trump rally when it was announced “and looked at it as a target of opportunity.”
Notably, after the assassination attempt, the US Secret Service snipers had shot Crooks and an AR-style rifle was later recovered. Bethel Park is a village 40 miles south of where Trump’s rally was held in Butler. Donald Trump was on stage at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania’s Butler before gunshots rang out and Secret Service agents stormed the stage, The Hill had reported
Beginning in late September 2023, an online account tied to Crooks was used to search for Trump campaign events scheduled in Pennsylvania, Rojek said. From April 2024 through July 12, the gunman searched for information on campaign events for both Trump and President Biden. Once the Trump rally was announced in Butler, he searched for specifics about that venue, including “Butler farm show podium,” according to Rojek.
About a month before the attack, the shooter searched for topics related to Trump and Mr. Biden, including the dates for the Democratic and Republican conventions.
As early as 2019, accounts tied to Crooks searched for explosive devices including “detonating cord,” “how to make a bomb from fertilizer” and “how do remote detonators work,” Rojek said.
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