Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials said yesterday that they believe the would-be assassin of former President Donald Trump acted alone.
The agency is investigating the attack as both an attempted assassination and an act of domestic terrorism, officials told reporters in a press call.
![State and local police block off roads surrounding the home of the suspected shooter of former President Donald Trump, as the FBI carries out an investigation, in Bethel Park, Pa., on July 14, 2024. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)<br/>Joseph Lord](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F07%2F15%2Fid5686561-FBI-investigation-shooter-LSedit-1200x800.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
Joseph Lord
The new details emerged less than 24 hours after the United States saw its first major assassination attempt of a president or presidential candidate since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
Authorities have identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, a resident of Bethel, Pennsylvania. At a Trump rally in Butler on Saturday, Crooks fired several shots from an elevated position near the venue. Witnesses saw a man with a rifle at a rooftop on a nearby building.
Trump said a bullet pierced his right ear but that he is otherwise safe. A 50-year-old firefighter, Corey Comperatore, was killed in the crowd. Two other rally attendees—identified by Pennsylvania State Police as David Dutch and James Copenhaver— were injured.
Both men are in stable condition. Pennsylvania State Police did not provide further details on their injuries. A GoFundMe established by the Trump campaign for the victims and their families has raised nearly $3 million as of the evening of July 14.
The FBI investigation—with which Crooks’ family is cooperating—has not yet identified a motive.
Attorney General Merrick Garland called the assassination attempt on the former president “an attack on our democracy itself.”
The Justice Department has “no tolerance for such violence and as Americans we must have no tolerance for it,” Garland told reporters. “This must stop.”
The agency said a “suspicious device” was located during a sweep of Crooks’ car. It was later diffused by bomb technicians.
FBI Director Chris Wray vowed that the agency would “leave no stone unturned” in their investigation of the attack.
“An attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate can only be described as absolutely despicable and will not be tolerated in this country,” Mr. Wray told reporters.
Earlier on Sunday, President Joe Biden said he asked that the investigation be “thorough and swift.”
Prior to the attack, officials said, the perpetrator wasn’t on the FBI’s radar as a potential threat.
The FBI’s screening of the shooter’s social media has so far revealed no ideology or political beliefs that could have been his basis for the attack, officials said.
They say the FBI has received over 2,000 tips so far.
Officials believe the rifle used in the attack was a semi-automatic rifle similar to an AR-15.
Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh Field Office, told reporters the weapon belonged to the shooter’s father, who purchased it legally. It’s still unclear how Crooks got his hands on the rifle, or if his father was aware that he had taken it.
Trump, meanwhile, is due to arrive in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the Republican National Convention (RNC) on July 14, as originally planned. He said in a social media post that he had wanted to delay the travel in the immediate aftermath of the attack, but ultimately decided against it.
Secret Service officials confirmed on July 14 that no changes have been made to security at the RNC, which starts on July 15, noting that the event has already been given the highest-grade security.
Over on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are vowing their own investigations into the matter.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Congress will probe if there were security lapses at the rally.
“We need to know: how could an individual be at that elevation that was seen by apparently bystanders on the ground—how could that not be noticed by Secret Service?” Mr. Johnson told NBC’s “Today” on July 14.
Leaders on two panels, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) have also both indicated plans to investigate the attack.
—Joseph Lord
GOP PLATFORM
It’s short. It’s punchy. It’s Trump’s, courtesy of the party he leads.
The GOP platform that will go to the RNC in Milwaukee after the former president survived an assassination attempt looks different from many of its predecessors—even the 2016 platform that the party ended up retaining in 2020.
“The RNC platform reads like the outline to a Donald Trump speech. It actually reads in his voice,” Richard Gordon, a member of the chairman’s board of the Democratic Governors Association, told The Epoch Times.
A Trump campaign source told The Epoch Times that the former president was looking over and modifying the document late on July 7, the night before the RNC’s platform committee passed it in an 84–18 vote.
Everything from the distinctive capitalization to its dedication “to the forgotten men and women of America” has the fingerprints of a man who decisively recaptured his party after energizing his base through contentious early primaries.
The document softened abortion-related language, an apparent concession to concerns over electability. The change has prompted pushback from some pro-life activists.
The handling of abortion isn’t the only thing different and noteworthy about the 2024 platform.
Insiders told The Epoch Times that the document is unique insofar as it is tied to a specific candidate, Trump, and written to reach a broad audience of Americans. Unusual aspects of the platform committee meeting have also drawn attention.
For one, it passed through committee at RNC headquarters unusually quickly. Though amendments were allowed, none were presented. Each plank of the platform passed easily, without subcommittee meetings, in a closed-door environment without electronics present.
It’s also unusually short-winded: At just 16 pages, with plenty of white space, the platform is a much quicker read than its predecessors. The 2016 platform, by contrast, was 60 pages.
All that remains is for the platform to be eventually given the greenlight at the convention. That event will also see Trump go from presumptive nominee to his party’s official selection.
—Nathan Worcester and Joseph Lord
BOOKMARKS
The moment that Trump was shot—and the second immediately following it—are some of the most consequential in American history. An article by The Epoch Times’ Eva Fu, Frank Fang, and Joseph Lord breaks down the shooting second-by-second.
Trump’s campaign has announced the official speaker list for the days-long RNC, The Epoch Times’ Tom Ozimek reported. The list includes several Trumps, 21 senators and Republican Senate candidates, most of Republican House leadership, and dozens of others.
A judge has dismissed former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reported. It clears the way for Giuliani to pursue an appeal of a $148 million defamation judgment rendered against him in a case involving two Georgia election workers.
With only days until the RNC begins, it’s crunch time for Trump to pick a VP, The Epoch Times’ Janice Hisle reported. According to most reports, the finalists seem to be Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), along with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.