Thomas Michael Crooks also managed to fly a drone around the rally site without being detected, Christopher Wray told Congress
Christopher Wray appears before the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, July 24, 2024 © AFP / Chris Kleponis
Would-be assassin Thomas Michael Crooks researched the assassination of John F Kennedy before opening fire on former President Donald Trump earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers on Wednesday.
Crooks shot Trump in the ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. Firing from a rooftop that Trump’s Secret Service detail had inexplicably left unguarded, the 20-year-old gunman killed one person in the audience and injured two others before Secret Service snipers shot him dead.
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Wray said that an FBI examination of Crooks’ computer revealed that he began researching the JFK assassination on July 6, the same day he registered to attend the Trump rally.
“He did a Google search for – quote – ‘how far away was Oswald from Kennedy’,” Wray said, referring to Lee Harvey Oswald, the gunman accused of shooting Kennedy in 1963.
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“That’s a search that’s obviously significant in terms of his state of mind,” Wray said, adding that Crooks had become “very focused on President Trump and his rally” at the time.
Wray’s testimony shed little light on Crooks’ motivation. The FBI chief insisted that the shooter was not in contact with any accomplices or co-conspirators, and did not speculate about his political leanings. Before becoming fixated on Trump, Crooks did “a lot of searches of public figures in general,” Wray said, warning that “it is, quite frankly, a dangerous time to be a prominent public official.”
Wray did not comment on how many Secret Service snipers were present at the rally, nor did he comment on allegations that the agency had pulled some staff from Trump’s detail before the event. Wray did, however, reveal that Crooks visited the site in Butler on three occasions, and on the day of the rally “was flying the drone around the area” just two hours before Trump took to the stage.
Republicans have fiercely criticized the Secret Service for failing to secure Crooks’ rooftop vantage point, despite it being around 150 meters from the stage, and for apparently disregarding reports of an armed Crooks crawling around on the roof minutes before opening fire.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday, a day after telling the Oversight Committee that she took responsibility for the “most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades.”