After briefing lawmakers on the social media footprint of Donald Trump’s would-be assassin, the FBI has reportedly backtracked on one account they’d tied to the shooter, saying it’s actually fake.
In a briefing call with Senate and House lawmakers on Wednesday, FBI and Secret Service officials shared new details about 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks and his movements in the lead-up to the shooting — including a chilling message left on the online gamer platform Steam.
“July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds,” read the post, lawmakers told mutliple outlets.
But now, a US official has said that the FBI now believes the account that the post came from to be fake.
The insider told CNN that authorities did believe the post was genuine when they shared the information but have since revised that assessment.
On July 13, Crooks headed to the site of Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, armed with an AR-15 his father had legally purchased.
After scaling the roof of a building just outside the security perimeter but only around 150 yards from the podium where the Republican presidential candidate took to the stage, Crooks opened fire.
Trump was struck in the ear before ducking behind the podium and being rushed by Secret Service agents, who threw their bodies over his.
Three rallygoers were also shot, one fatally.
Crooks had been researching both Trump and President Joe Biden online prior to the attack and had images of the two rivals as well as other political figures including Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani and Fulton County DA Fani Willis, the FBI officials revealed in the briefing.
The gunman’s two cellphones also revealed searches for the dates of Trump’s public events as well as for the Democratic National Convention in August, when the party will officially crown its presidential and vice presidential candidates.
He had also visited the rally site twice after it was announced — the second time being earlier on the day of the shooting.
While searches of his cellphones and the home he shared with his parents have revealed new information about the gunman, there is one major thing that investigators continue to be stumped by: his motive.
Crooks had no criminal history and was not known to law enforcement before Saturday.
Online records reveal that Crooks had been registered to vote as a Republican. However, federal campaign finance reports show that he had also made a $15 contribution to a Democratic-aligned political action committee called Progressive Turnout Project on January 20, 2021.
Former high school classmates described his views as “slightly right leaning” but couldn’t recall him ever speaking up with strong political views.
FBI officials reportedly told lawmakers that they hadn’t found any “political or ideological information” at the shooter’s home and that there were no signs that he had strong political views that contributed to the attack.
One potential line of investigation is focusing on the gunman’s mental health, with lawmakers confirming that he had searched for “major depressive disorder” on one of his cellphones.
The briefing came as calls mount from Republicans on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to quit over the agency’s response to the shooting, after it emerged that the gunman had been spotted by authorities multiple times at the rally site prior to the attack.
A staggering 20 minutes before the shooting, Secret Service snipers had laid eyes on the gunman on the rooftop, and lawmakers and officials told ABC News that Crooks was first identified as a person of interest at 5:10 p.m. — over an hour before the shooting unfolded.
Then, 20 minutes before he opened fire, Secret Service snipers had spotted him on the roof. Despits that, no action was taken until he fired his first shots toward the former president.
In an especially fiery exchange, Cheatle was confronted by GOP lawmakers on the floor of the RNC on Wednesday night demanding answers about what had gone wrong.
Testy footage, posted online by Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn , shows the group of senators grilling her and chasing her through the auditorium in Milwaukee.
“You put him within less than an inch of his life,” Wyoming Senator John Barrasso shouted at her.
“Resignation or full explanation.”
Cheatle, who has been called to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, has admitted that the “buck stops with me” over the events that day but has so far refused to bow down to calls to resign.
Trump, who has described his survival as a “miracle” and claimed that it has given him a new focus to seek “unity” for the US, will give his first speech since the attempt on his life at the RNC on Thursday night.