FBI Director Wray confirmed reports that suspected Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks’s parents reported him missing, though Mr. Wray was unsure as to when that call was made.
“My recollection is they did call concerned that he was missing. My recollection, though, is that they didn’t call until … I think this was after the event, but I’m not certain of that,” Mr. Wray said.
The director said his understanding was that Mr. Crooks’s last interaction with his father was to tell him that he was going to the gun range.
Would-be Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks purchased 50 rounds of ammunition hours before he allegedly opened fire on the former president’s Butler, Pennsylvania, rally, FBI Director Wray said.
Laying out the timeline of events, Mr. Wray noted that Mr. Crooks went to a shooting range the day before and then visited the rally site for about an hour on the morning of the event.
“He buys the ammunition at around 1:30,” Mr. Wray said. “At around 3:50 is when he’s back on the grounds of the rally, and that’s when he used the drone that I’ve talked about already today.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray said that suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks purchased the AR-style rifle that he allegedly used to shoot former President Donald Trump from his father.
“His father bought it legally, but then, our understanding so far, is that his father then conveyed it to him—sold it, in fact, to his son,” Mr. Wray said.
The director said investigators gleaned that information both from Mr. Crooks’s father and supporting documentation.
Would-be Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks searched for details about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, including how far Lee Harvey Oswald positioned himself from his target, according to July 24 testimony from FBI Director Christopher Wray.
After an FBI analysis of Mr. Crooks’s laptop, according to Mr. Wray, it was determined that the suspected gunman searched for how far Oswald was from President Kennedy during the 1963 assassination. Mr. Crooks carried out the Google search on July 6, the same day the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was announced, the FBI director told members of the House Judiciary Committee.
“On July 6, he did a Google search for ‘how far away was Oswald from Kennedy,’” Mr. Wray told the House panel.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said investigators believe suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks visited a shooting range on July 12, the day before his attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
“We do believe, based on what we’ve seen so far, that he went to a shooting range the day before, and that he shot an AR-style rifle at that range the day before,” Mr. Wray said.
He said he wasn’t positive if investigators had confirmed that the gun Mr. Crooks used at the shooting range was the same AR-15 that he allegedly used on July 13 at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally.
Suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks purchased a ladder prior to the shooting, according to FBI Director Wray. But, he said investigators now believe Mr. Crooks used another method to scale the AGR building from which he attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
“We now believe that the subject climbed onto the roof using some mechanical equipment on the ground and vertical piping on the side of the AGR building,” Mr. Wray said.
“In other words, we do not believe he used a ladder to get up there.”
FBI Director Wray testified that the FBI has “easily 700 agents” investigating the July 13 attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life.
“It has involved over half of the FBI’s 56 field offices, almost every headquarters division—we even have some of our overseas offices working on it,” Mr. Wray said.
Asked why, the director advised that some of the gunman’s communications methods and purchases involved foreign companies.
Investigators have yet to find any evidence that suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks had accomplices in his attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump, FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
“We’re doing lots of different kinds of cellular analysis, geolocation stuff, looking at his accounts,” Mr. Wray told lawmakers Wednesday.
“From everything we’ve seen—which is consistent with what we’ve learned in interviews—a lot of people describe him as a loner, and that does kind of fit with what we’re seeing in his devices.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray said investigators believe that suspected Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks first visited the site of the former president’s Butler, Pennsylvania, rally one week before the July 13 event.
“I think, a week before, he spent roughly 20 minutes there,” Mr. Wray told the House Judiciary Committee.
Mr. Crooks then returned to the site on the morning of the rally “it appears for about 70 minutes,” Mr. Wray said, noting that he wasn’t entirely sure of the accuracy of that time span.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said shooting suspect Thomas Crooks flew a drone for about 11 minutes at around 3:50 p.m. or 4 p.m. on the day of the rally to survey the surrounding area.
Mr. Wray said Mr. Crooks operated the drone about 200 yards from the stage where former President Donald Trump delivered his speech. The drone, Mr. Wray said, afforded the gunman a “rearview mirror” of the scene behind him and a better assessment of the angle toward the podium.
Pictures of public figures that were reported to have been found on suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks’s phone were actually cached images from news articles, FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
The Associated Press reported last week that investigators found images of former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden, and other public officials on Mr. Crooks’s phone.
Mr. Crooks also reportedly researched the dates of the Democratic National Convention and former President Trump’s upcoming public appearances.
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. Two hours before the rally shooting, Mr. Crooks was flying the drone “about 200 yards away” from the rally stage area, the FBI director said.
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, according to the head of the Pennsylvania State Police.
During questioning before the House Homeland Security on July 23, Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris revealed new details about the security failure that led to the attempted assassination of 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.