The would-be assassin’s motive remains a mystery, US authorities have said
The FBI has stated that Thomas Crooks, the Pennsylvania man who attempted to assassinate Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, likely acted alone. However, the agency also confirmed that his motive remains unclear.
Crooks fired eight shots at Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last month, grazing the candidate’s ear, killing one audience member, and injuring two others before being fatally shot by the Secret Service.
“I want to be clear, we have not seen any indication to suggest Crooks was directed by a foreign entity to conduct the attack,” Robert Wells, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, told reporters on Wednesday.
The bureau revealed details about some of the evidence in the case, including the rifle Crooks used, the backpack he carried, the bombs found in his car trunk, and the air conditioner he used to climb onto the roof from which he fired. However, they chose to brief media outlets on a conference call instead of a public press conference.
© FBI
Wells added that the FBI has yet to identify a motive for the assassination attempt or uncover any co-conspirators who might have been involved.
© Allegheny County PD via FBI
Federal agents reportedly conducted over 1,000 interviews during the past six weeks. The FBI also examined five years of Crooks’ online activity and found “a mixture of ideologies,” said Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office.
“We see no definitive ideology associated with our subject, either left-leaning or right-leaning,” Rojek said, according to the Washington Post.
Crooks allegedly researched both parties’ national conventions, as well as information about Trump’s rally in Butler. He also started looking up information about creating improvised explosive devices (IEDs) as early as 2019, according to the FBI.
Two IEDs were discovered in the trunk of Crooks’ car. Initial reports described them as pipe bombs, but photos released by the Allegheny County Police Department, which the FBI shared, showed he used ammunition boxes as casings. The bureau noted that the remote detonation receiver was off, and the devices “had several problems in the way they were constructed.”
The FBI said that Crooks had no traces of alcohol or drugs in his system and died from a single gunshot wound to the head, citing official autopsy results.
Earlier this month, a Republican congressman visited Butler and stated that the FBI had “released the crime scene” after just three days and cleaned up the blood and other “biological evidence” from the roof where Crooks had been positioned. The bureau also permitted Crooks’ family to cremate his remains on July 23, making independent verification of the autopsy findings impossible.
Crooks’ parents have retained a high-powered law firm, even though the FBI indicated that they had been fully cooperative with the investigation.