Trump shooter Thomas Crooks began buying guns, bomb materials more than a year ago: FBI

Thomas Crooks made 25 gun-related buys between spring 2023 and the first half of 2024 and bought explosives material, the strongest indication yet he was planning an attack in advance.

Last photo of Thomas Crooks taken by a Beaver County police officer who spotted Crooks on the roof. Photo: Supplied.

The gunman who tried to assassinate Donald Trump began making dozens of gun-related purchases and stocking up on bomb-making materials more than a year ago, FBI officials said Monday, the strongest indication yet that he had been planning an attack well before he opened fire on the former president.

Thomas Matthew Crooks made 25 different gun-related buys online between spring 2023 and the first half of this year, and bought material used in explosives six times, officials said, offering new glimpses into their far-ranging investigation into the July 13 shooting at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania.

FBI officials said Crooks, 20 years old, searched online for information about power plants, mass-shooting events, improvised explosive devices and the May assassination attempt on Slovakia’s prime minister, said Kevin Rojek, the FBI special agent in charge in Pittsburgh.

“While the FBI’s investigation may not have yet determined a motive, we believe the subject made significant efforts to conceal his activities,” Rojek said. “Additionally, we believe his actions can also show careful planning ahead of the campaign rally.”

Crooks made the purchases online using an alias and collected the chemicals and gun equipment in the home he shared with his parents in Bethel Park, Pa., about an hour south of the rally site. But they weren’t alarmed because he had long been interested in science and experiments, Rojek said.

“For that reason, they weren’t concerned that it was focused on committing an attack of this nature or harming other people,” Rojek said. “The parents have said in their interviews that they had no advanced knowledge of any of this,” he said, adding that Crooks’ parents have been credible and cooperative.

Multiple investigations are ongoing into how Crooks was able to open fire with an AR-15 rifle from the roof of a building roughly 400 feet away from where Trump spoke, killing one spectator, critically injuring two others and leaving the former president with a graze wound to the ear. A Secret Service sniper team shot back, killing him.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has interviewed more than 450 people, including dozens of Crooks’ co-workers, family members and former classmates. On Monday, Rojek said Trump had agreed to be interviewed as part of the shooting probe. An interview with a crime victim is a normal part of any FBI investigation, but long-simmering tensions between Trump and the bureau have escalated since the shooting, raising doubts about whether the former president would submit to questioning. Trump was hit by a bullet or a bullet fragment, the bureau confirmed last week, after Trump grew upset with Director Christopher Wray’s circumspect responses to questions about how he was hurt.

“We want to get his perspective on what he observed, just like any other witness to the crime,” Rojek said. “It is a standard victim interview like we would do for any other victim of crime.” In studying Crooks, the FBI has been able to piece together a picture of a highly intelligent loner who attended college and held down steady work at a nursing home and whose primary social circle was limited to his immediate family. But his motive remains murky.

The FBI has requested information from 86 companies as it examines online accounts associated with Crooks, but he appears to have had few interactions with others, even virtually, officials said.

Crooks’ interest in shooting began as a hobby and progressed to formal firearms training courses.

He registered to attend Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., on July 6, three days after the former president’s campaign announced the event. The same day, he searched online for details about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, querying, “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?” Crooks went to the rally site the next day and spent about 20 minutes in the area, including around the American Glass Research building, to conduct what law-enforcement officials believe was early surveillance. On the day of the shooting, he gained access to his rooftop firing position by scaling HVAC equipment and a pipe.

In Crooks’ car parked near the rally site, investigators found two “relatively crude” homemade bombs designed to be set off by remote control.

“These devices consist of ammunition boxes filled with explosive material, with wires, receivers and ignition devices connected to them,” Rojek said. Investigators found a transmitter on the gunman’s body. The bombs were capable of exploding, but the receivers were in the off position, Rojek said.

Dow Jones