More than two weeks after Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt, federal investigators are still trying to uncover the motive of the former president’s would-be assassin.
The nascent probe being led by the FBI has found that the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was “highly intelligent” and had a growing interest in shooting, Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, said on Monday.
Rojek also said that Trump has agreed to sit for a victim interview with the FBI – a routine part of criminal investigations. Such interviews are voluntary.
Crooks, Rojek said, used aliases to make firearms-related purchases online, beginning in the spring of 2023. The agent said that during the first half of this year, Crooks made “six chemical precursor-related purchases online of materials used to create the explosive devices recovered in the subject’s vehicle and home.”
Crooks used foreign-based encrypted email accounts to purchase firearm components, chemicals and other explosive components, investigators told reporters on Monday.
CNN has reported that text messages between law enforcement before the shooting began suggest that some officers raised Crooks’ presence at the rally more than 90 minutes before he climbed onto a roof and began firing at Trump.
In text messages obtained by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley from the Beaver County Emergency Unit, a local countersniper first raised with his colleagues that he saw someone park near their vehicles and sit on a nearby picnic table at 4:26 p.m.
According to the messages, which were first reported by The New York Times, local law enforcement later took a picture of the same man, who turned out to be the shooter, and sent it to other officers in a group chat nearly 30 minutes before Crooks would shoot at Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally.