Trump Shooter Had Encrypted Accounts in Multiple Countries: Congressman

Thomas Matthew Crooks, who graduated from Bethel Park High School with the Class of 2022, in Bethel Park, Pa. Bethel Park School District via AP

The man who fired shots at former President Donald Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania had encrypted accounts in multiple countries, according to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives task force investigating the attempted assassination.

“We haven’t learned much about those overseas accounts,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) told a press conference in Chicago on Aug. 21. “We do know they were in ... Belgium, New Zealand, and Germany.”

Waltz is on the “Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump.”

FBI officials previously disclosed that Crooks used encrypted messaging applications.

“Why does a 19-year-old kid who is a health care aide need encrypted platforms, not even based in the United States, but based abroad, where most terrorist organizations know it is harder for our law enforcement to get into?” Waltz asked.

He said that the question had not yet been answered.

Waltz and other members were preparing later Wednesday to receive a briefing from FBI officials on the agency’s probe into the attempted assassination of Trump on July 13.

He said that task force members have been discussing how authorities should be sharing information as they uncover it, not waiting until final reports on the investigations are ready.

“They need to be releasing information as they come across it because this wasn’t an isolated incident. The threats are continuing,” Waltz said.

The FBI and U.S. Secret Service did not respond to early morning requests for comment.

Waltz highlighted the recent charges against a Pakistani national. That man, Asif Merchant, has been charged in connection with a foiled plot to assassinate public officials in the United States. Authorities alleged he gave $5,000 as an advance payment to individuals he thought were hitmen, but were undercover FBI agents.

Waltz also said he was disturbed that the officials who constructed the security plan for Trump’s July rally have not been disciplined.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. told Congress in July that discipline may follow out once the agency finishes its internal probe into the situation.

“That roof should have had better coverage, and we will get to the bottom of if there were any policy violations,” he said at one point.

Rowe added later that he would not provide real-time updates on disciplinary measures but would “at a high level provide at least some type of statement that people are being held accountable.”

Kimberly Cheatle, who was the Secret Service’s director before stepping down after Trump was nearly assassinated, said on July 22 that the Secret Service’s initial report about rally security would be ready in 60 days.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is also conducting an investigation.