The man who tried to assassinate Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to have posted violent antisemitic and anti-immigration content online as a teenager, a senior FBI official told a US Senate hearing on Tuesday.
FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate at the hearing revealed the existence of the social media account, which dated to 2019-2020 – when Thomas Crooks, who authorities have identified as the shooter, would have been 15 or 16 years old. It is some of the first evidence to become public about a potential motive in the July 13 attack at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania.
“Something just very recently uncovered that I want to share is a social media account which is believed to be associated with the shooter in about the 2019-2020 time frame,” Abbate told lawmakers, adding that more than 700 comments were posted by the account.
“Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature,” Abbate said.
Crooks, who was 20, shot at Trump with an AR-15-style rifle during the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, wounding the former president’s ear, killing one rally attendee and wounding two others. Secret Service snipers killed Crooks after he opened fire.
Investigators have described Crooks as a loner with no close friends and a social network limited mainly to immediate family members.
The first shooting of a US president or major party candidate in more than four decades was a glaring security lapse that led last week to former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation under bipartisan congressional pressure.
Her immediate successor, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe, told lawmakers that he visited the outdoor rally site in Butler and climbed onto the roof of a nearby building from which Crooks fired.
“What I saw made me ashamed,” Rowe told a joint hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees. “As a career law enforcement officer, and a 25-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”
Rowe sought to assure lawmakers that he has since taken steps to prevent similar lapses from occurring amid concerns among both Democrats and Republicans about further political violence as the campaign intensifies ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. election.
Crooks flew a drone near the rally site ahead of his assassination attempt, a flight that officials failed to detect because a system designed to detect drones was not working properly due to problems with cellular network bandwidth, Rowe said.
The Secret Service, a federal law enforcement agency whose duties including protecting the president and certain other top political figures, has added six people to its protection list since July 13, including Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance and his family and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, while reinforcing security details, Rowe said.
“This attack was a shocking reminder that the threat of political violence is alive and well in our country. By all accounts, this was inexcusable security, and planning failure,” Democratic Senate Homeland Security Chairman Gary Peters said, adding that his panel is working on reforms to strengthen security protocols for the Secret Service.
Senator Rand Paul, the committee’s top Republican, said his staff had found communication gaps between local police who first noticed Crooks and the Secret Service.
Rowe said that Secret Service counter snipers and members of the Trump security detail had no knowledge that there was a man with a firearm on the roof of a nearby building.
The attempted assassination is the topic of multiple investigations by House and Senate committees, as well as a new bipartisan task force.