FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday provided an update on the federal investigation into the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally earlier this month.
So far, the FBI has not identified a motive for suspected gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks’ actions. He was shot and killed immediately after opening fire on the rally, killing one rally-goer, injuring two others, and striking former President Trump in the right ear.
“We have recovered a drone that the shooter used,” he said at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, adding that it was taken from his vehicle. Three explosive devices were also recovered, he said, describing them as “relatively crude” and capable of being detonated remotely.
Local law enforcement had alerted the U.S. Secret Service to a suspicious individual before the shooting at former President Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month, said the chief of the Pennsylvania State Police.
During questioning before the House Homeland Security hearing Tuesday, Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris revealed new details about the security failure that led to the assassination attempt on former President Trump, which left one person dead and two injured.
Col. Paris said that “there was a text thread going” with the Butler County Emergency Services Unit, who had seen suspected gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks and reported him as a suspicious person before the incident.
FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed that the Trump rally gunman flew a drone “about 200 yards” away from the rally stage area hours before the shooting.
“We have recovered a drone that the shooter used,” he said at a House Judiciary hearing, adding that it was recovered from Thomas Crooks' vehicle.
Hours before the rally shooting, Mr. Crooks was flying the drone “about 200 yards away” from the rally stage area, the FBI director also said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray began his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee by condemning the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump as a “particularly heinous” example of the alarming security threats he has recently warned of.
“I have been saying for some time now that we are living in an elevated threat environment,” Mr. Wray said, referencing his previous public statements concerning the dangers posed by the porous southern border.
Those dangers, he noted, include the trafficking of illicit drugs across the border to the possibility that terrorists could exploit the crisis to gain entry to the country.
Body camera footage taken in the aftermath of Trump rally shooting earlier this month was released on Tuesday, showing a member of the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit on the roof of the building after a gunman was shot and killed.
In the blurred, but graphic, footage, the official is seen standing on the roof of the building, while the shooter’s body is seen partially blurred in the clip. Local officials are heard communicating with U.S. Secret Service agents about what they knew as well as a timeline of events prior to the shooting.
The video as well as other records were released by the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday, acquired from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit “in compliance with congressional requests,” his office said.
The man who shot former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on July 13 had a detonation device, the state’s top police official said on July 23.
“We were aware of that very early on and that was a serious tactical consideration in the immediate aftermath as we worked that crime scene,” Col. Christopher Paris, commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police, told a U.S. House of Representatives hearing in Washington.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) had asked Col. Paris for confirmation that Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old shooter, had a detonation device and bombs in his car, which was parked near the rally.
Ten days after the failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, officials have not found a motive, while other details about the shooter, who was killed that day by a Secret Service sniper, remain unclear.
The shooter’s father, Matthew Brian Crooks, 53, was spotted leaving a store on Monday, telling Fox News that he won’t be releasing a statement on the shooting for the time being.
Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the U.S. Secret Service, resigned on July 23, one day after her testimony before Congress about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
“I take full responsibility for the security lapse,” she said in the email to Secret Service staff. “In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas soon after said he was appointing Ronald Rowe, the service’s deputy director, to serve as acting director.