Donald Trump gunman had photos of Kate Middleton on phone, FBI investigation reveals
Thomas Matthew Crooks researched and downloaded photos of the Princess of Wales before his assassination attempt on Donald Trump, FBI analysis of his two phones and laptop shows.
The FBI has found search history and photos of the Princess of Wales downloaded to the phones and laptop of the man who shot Donald Trump.
The twist follows Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmation that online messages purporting to be left by Donald Trump’s gunman days before the attempted assassination were fake.
Hopes of discovering a motive were initially buoyed when Secret Service and FBI officials told US Senators that Crooks, 20, wrote a threatening message on the gaming platform ‘Steam’, which gamers use to chat and buy games.
Crooks allegedly wrote: “July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds.”
But a new analysis shows the online account was fake, according to a law enforcement official, and an additional source familiar with a briefing given to Senators, speaking to CBS News.
The discovery of several images of high-profile figures on Crooks’ electronic devices,
included recently saved pictures of Catherine, Princess of Wales, Trump, President Joe Biden, Attorney-General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, National Public Radio reported.
Crooks’ search engine history showed he researched dates for Trump’s speaking events, as well as the term “majordepressive order”.
But it is the search history and photos of the Princess of Wales that is the biggest twist.
The Princess attended the Wimbledon men’s final last Sunday with her nine-year-old daughter, Charlotte, Princess of Wales, just one day after the shooting.
The mother of three has only recently returned to duties after a lengthy stay from public events following her cancer diagnosis earlier this year.
The development comes as US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was chased down by two senators while attending day three of the Republican National Convention.
Senator Marsha Blackburn posted a video on X showing her and Senator John Barrasso running after Ms Cheatle in a public grilling.
“This was an assassination attempt, you owe the people answers. You owe the president answers,” Blackburn said to Ms Cheatle, who continued to walk away from the senators.
The incident came after the committee’s Republican chairman, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, issued a subpoena to Ms Cheatle, compelling her to testify before politicians on July 22.
Ms Cheatle had agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee as Republicans intensify efforts to investigate the attempted assassination on Donald Trump.
“While we are disappointed that the Committee rushed to issue a subpoena given the Department’s ongoing engagement with Congress, Director Cheatle welcomes the opportunity to testify before the Committee,” the letter, which was obtained by CBS News, said.
Meanwhile, alarming new details have emerged about the attempted assassination of Trump, including the Secret Service was warned about Crooks and designated him as a “threat” 10 minutes before the former president took the stage.
🚨FULL VIDEO: Secret Service Director REFUSES to answer to the American people. pic.twitter.com/MPVOke5zhY
— Marsha Blackburn (@VoteMarsha) July 18, 2024
Also, according to PunchBowl, a political news daily in Washington D.C, a US Senate briefing was told the shooter 62 minutes elapsed between the time the shooter was photographed as suspicious and when he fired the first shots.
The Senate was told 20 minutes elapsed between the time the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was spotted by snipers and when he fired the shots, PunchBowl reports.
The publication reports the briefing heard Crooks visited the rally site a few days in advance to scope it.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said there’s no known foreign nexus but no established motive as of now, according to PunchBowl.
The publication added Mr Wray said the shooter used encrypted communication and had little to no social media presence.
CNN reports the 20-year-old shooter had a diagnosis of a major depression disorder, Secret Service and the FBI told US Senators in a phone briefing, according to member of Congress on the call.
It comes as the inspector general of the US Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into the US Secret Service’s planning of Trump’s Pennsylvania rally.
It is being described as the worst security failure by the US Secret Service in four decades.
One of the people likely to be called to give evidence will be the Ms Cheatle who is facing immense pressure to stand down after the July 13 rally for perceived failings.
Trump’s son Eric Trump said the former president was dealing with “the greatest earache in the history of earaches” but the shooting result could have been much different.
He said it was “infuriating” to know that the shooter was spotted 26 minutes before the first shot was fired and hard to believe the Secret Service were not on the rooftop.
“A big building that size, 130 yards away from a podium from an elevated position — you don’t need to be a security expert to realise that you might want to have somebody up there.”
But what were the security failings on the day?
ROOFTOP
The rooftop where shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks set up was within 150m of the Trump stage but was not secured. Director Cheatle accepted the rooftop was in the line-of-sight but because at its highest point it was sloped, there was a “safety factor” for agents.
“So, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside,” she said.
Her statement has been ridiculed by some former agents and other law enforcement.
The two Secret Service countersniper teams may have initially been hindered in their ability to see the shooter as he crawled up the roof due to its slanted sides. Trees near the rally likely played a part in obscuring the shooter from at least one team assigned to detect and neutralise would-be snipers.
THE BUILDING
Crooks was able to use a ladder he brought to the scene to climb up part of the roof and was never approached or questioned. While his sniper position was in the outer perimeter of the security cordon, the Secret Service had responsibility for the co-ordination of all security in inner and outer perimeters, tasked with creating the overall security blue print and then assigning resources including its own agents and state and local police to various positions.
EARLY WARNING
Crooks was at the security screening area for the Trump rally at 3pm – about three hours before the rally – and aroused suspicion after passing through the magnetometers carrying a rangefinder. A rangefinder, similar to binoculars, is used by shooters/hunters to measure distances ahead of a long range shot. It is not illegal and he was allowed to pass but was kept “an eye on” by officers manning the screening area and a radio call went out. Secret Service was advised of this “suspicious character”. But he was lost in the crowd and he left the secure area to return to his car to retrieve his rifle.
SIGHTINGS
One of the first sightings of Crooks was by the Secret Service sniper team who saw him through their gun scopes as he looked straight back at them through his rangefinder. He then moved off but moments later members of the public told local police they had seen a man climb on top of an air conditioner unit and hoist himself up to the roof. More police were told but it is not clear to whom – if anybody – they passed that information on to. The public reports about a rooftop gunman were made a full two minutes before Crooks started shooting.
RESPONSIBILITY
The Butler County District Attorney, tasked with overseeing the county’s Emergency Service Unit (ESU), said his people were not tasked with guarding the rally’s outside perimeter. DA Ronald Goldinger said ESU crews were on site but not assigned to that area and confirmed the Secret Service was in charge of positioning security assets. Director Cheatle said it was local police’s responsibility to guard the building that shooter Crooks would later climb. She said a sniper team from the ESU was assigned that building and should have been on the second floor with overwatch of the crowd at the event.
“There was local police in that building – there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building,” she said.
At any rate, the Secret Service did not sweep the building and tasked local authorities with that duty. Pennsylvania police said it had provided all the assets the Secret Service had requested and acted on their orders as to what to do and where to be positioned. A local officer can be seen on public iPhone footage scrambling after the public directed him to the rooftop position.
RESOURCES
The size of the security perimeter has been raised with some believing it was not big enough and the Secret Service did not assign enough officers from its own ranks nor the local and state police. The Secret Service said there were four counter sniper teams on duty, two of theirs and two local, and that was deemed adequate. There have been reports a police sniper had been ordered by the Secret Service not (not) to shoot the suspect. No such order was made and snipers are all trained and instructed to act whenever they see a threat and not wait on orders. The Secret Service had weeks earlier received intelligence of a plot by Iran to kill Donald Trump and has assigned extra security ahead of the fateful rally. Crooks’ car in the outer perimeter was found to have contained explosives and other sniper material, bullet proof jackets and rounds of bullets, but how this was not spotted earlier also raises questions.
HISTORY
The US Secret Service has been pinged for failures in the past including two breaches by intruders to the White House in 2014. In 2020 during a peaceful protest in Washington, the Secret Service broke operational planning and advanced on protesters escalating tensions. The agency later apologised. In August that year the agency shot a man holding a comb believing it was a gun. The Secret Services’ role and response to the 2021 Capitol Hill attacks is also still being debated.
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Originally published as Donald Trump gunman had photos of Kate Middleton on phone, FBI investigation reveals
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