New Delhi: FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed that Thomas Matthew Crooks, who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a campaign rally on July 13, had conducted online searches for information about the 1963 assassination of former President John F. Kennedy in the days leading up to the attack.
During his testimony before a congressional committee on Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray disclosed that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old attempted assassin, had Googled “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?” in relation to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald.
“That’s a search obviously that is significant in terms of his state of mind. That is the same day that it appears that he registered” for the Trump rally scheduled for July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, Wray told the House Judiciary Committee.
The FBI is investigating the shooting, which killed one rallygoer and seriously injured two others, as an act of domestic terrorism. The investigation has thrust the bureau into a political maelstrom months before the presidential election, with lawmakers and the public pressing for details about what may have motivated Crooks in the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
The agency has built out a detailed timeline of Crooks’ movements and online activity, but the precise motive — or why Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was singled out — remains elusive, Wray said. The FBI’s assessment continues to be that Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service counter sniper, acted alone.
“We do not know the motive. That is obviously one of the central questions in our investigation, and it’s been very frustrating to us that a lot of the usual kind of low-hanging-fruit places that we would find that have not yielded significant clues about his motive,” Wray said.
But, he added, the bureau has seen indications that he was interested in public figures — officials said at a private briefing last week that besides Trump, Crooks also had photos on his phone of Democratic President Joe Biden and other prominent people — and in the days before the shooting had appeared particularly consumed by Trump and the Butler rally
Crooks is believed to have visited the rally site a week before the event, staying for about 20 minutes, and then returned on the morning of July 13. More than two hours before the shooting, Wray said, Crooks flew a drone about 200 yards from the rally stage for about 11 minutes, using the device to livestream and watch footage.
The use of the drone, which along with a controller were recovered from Crooks’ car, so close to the rally site just hours before Trump took the stage add to the questions about the security lapses that preceded the shooting.
On the afternoon of the rally, Crooks attracted law enforcement scrutiny because of odd behavior around the edges of the event, including shouldering a backpack and peering into the lens of a range finder toward the rooftops behind the stage where Trump would stand within the hour.
Using what Wray said was mechanical equipment on the ground and vertical piping, Crooks was able to hoist himself up onto the roof of a squat manufacturing building that was within 135 meters (157 yards) of the stage. Crooks fired eight shots from an AR-style rifle before he was killed.
Trump’s campaign said the GOP nominee was doing “fine” after the shooting, which Trump said pierced the upper part of his right ear. Wray said his understanding was that either a bullet or some shrapnel “is what grazed his ear.” He pledged that the FBI would “leave no stone unturned” in its investigation.
“I have been saying for some time now that we are living in an elevated threat environment, and tragically the Butler County assassination attempt is another example — a particularly heinous and very public one — of what I have been talking about,” Wray said.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
How Far Away Was Oswald From Kennedy?: Trump Attacker Googled For JFK Assassination Details world-news World News | Latest International Global World News | Todays Breaking News Headlines
