Would-be assassin Thomas Crooks acted alone and was unknown to law enforcement when he attempted to kill President Trump at a Pennsylvania rally last year, the FBI has determined – a conclusion which the president is “satisfied” with.
All of Crooks’ digital accounts, including foreign-based ones, were reviewed as part of the bureau’s exhaustive probe into the deadly July 2024 Trump campaign rally shooting in Butler, which is now listed as “pending, inactive,” FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy Director Dan Bongino and a senior official directly involved in the investigation told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
“We fully briefed the president, as a victim of this case, at the White House, providing him with all of the details of our investigation, and the president was satisfied with the results and where we left it,” Patel said.
The Crooks case has invited conspiracy theories and accusations that the bureau botched the investigation and stonewalled congressional lawmakers, who are also probing the shooting.
“We have reviewed this case over and over — looked into every nugget. We have spoken to the families, the president — there is no cover-up here,” Bongino declared.
“There is no motive for it, there is no reason for it.”
Patel suggested former FBI Director Christopher Wray is to blame for the conspiracy theories surrounding the case, such as that Crooks, 20, was aided in carrying out the assassination attempt or that there was a second shooter.
“My predecessor went to Congress and said he didn’t know if it was a bullet that hit President Trump in the head. The whole world knew it was a bullet,” Patel said. “For the No. 1 law enforcement officer to say that — it causes a massive disbelief in the institution that Dan and I are now running.”
The director added that “many people make a lot of money on social media pushing conspiracy theories for clicks.”
Bongino also blamed previous FBI leadership for downplaying Crooks’ digital footprint.
“The degree of his digital footprint was not messaged correctly at all by prior leadership,” the deputy director said.
The 485 FBI employees tasked with the Crooks case reviewed 2,000 tips, conducted more than 1,000 interviews “around the world,” executed more than 10 search warrants, issued 100 subpoenas and analyzed 13 electronic devices and 35 accounts linked to the gunman, according to the bureau official.
“The FBI has been able to access all of the accounts,” the official said. “There has been reporting to inappropriately and incorrectly state that there was encryption that the FBI was not able to get into — that is not true. We have been able to get into every single account.”
Crooks maintained foreign-based email accounts from Germany and Belgium, which the FBI was “able to fully access … within days of the attack,” the official said.
“Additionally, the FBI engaged with foreign partners who also provided all of the content of those email accounts,” they added, noting, “We can say with confidence that there is no communication, there are no emails that Crooks had that we have not been able to access.”
“Reports say that we didn’t get into certain devices? That’s false,” Patel fumed. “We got into all of the devices.”
“When there was a lead about an overseas connection — the two instances where we became aware of the foreign accounts — the FBI reached out to foreign governments,” the official explained.
The FBI official was adamant that “there is no foreign connection in this case.”
“There is no individual that is outside US borders or inside US borders that had any role in directing him, inspiring him, or assisting him in any way — and that includes foreign governments,” the official said.
Bongino added: “We are very confident in the outcomes of this investigation. We have pulled on every thread. We are absolutely confident, and if information surfaces, please, immediately get it over to us for instant action.”
The top FBI officials were also confident that Crooks did not leave a manifesto explaining his motives for the attack.
“Where is the manifesto? The answer is — it doesn’t exist,” Bongino said, acknowledging that “we want an explanation too.”
“[C]rooks left no manifesto. He had no seepage of any kind. He didn’t give any indication anywhere that he was going to do this or why he did this,” the investigator said. “There are many instances in notable assassinations that they do want folks to know why they did it, but we don’t know that here, because Thomas did not leave any of those artifacts.”
Patel confirmed The Post’s previous reporting that Crooks was active on the website, DeviantArt, and displayed an interest in hulking, muscle-bound women, but said it does not appear he was actively engaging with the website’s community of “furries” — people who identify as anthropomorphized animal characters and/or are sexually attracted to them.
“Crooks was on that website and looked at images related to women who work out… a lot,” Patel said. “That was his interest, and so we are sharing this with you to show that just because he was on a website that has a voluminous amount of terrible information on it, there is no investigative fact to back up a connection between Thomas Crooks and a portion of the website that had the ‘furry’ on it.”
Years before the shooting, Crooks had made several disturbing YouTube comments, advocating for political violence, which some suggesting law enforcement should have acted on.
“People are asking why we didn’t act on his posts on certain sites? No one in law enforcement knew who he was. No one referred him to law enforcement, and we do not monitor every single Americans’ use of YouTube and Google and Twitter and Facebook,” Patel said.
“Because then people come back and say to us — ‘Why are you on our First Amendment rights?’”
If someone had tipped the FBI off about Crooks, he said, “immediately there would be action.”
“But no one did that,” the director insisted. “No one.”
The FBI is certain that all shots fired at Butler Farm Show Fairgrounds have been “accounted for” and “there were no phantom rounds.”
“It is the FBI’s conclusion that Crooks acted alone,” Bongino said.
“We’re not saying Crooks didn’t deal with anyone ever — we are just saying that the people he dealt with had no role in inspiring, motivating, or directing this attack.”
When reached for comment, a White House official pointed to Trump’s July comments to the Daily Caller, where the president said he was “very satisfied” with the FBI’s investigation into the assassination attempt against him.
