Miranda Devine: FBI, Secret Service butchered the Thomas Crooks case and ...

[SVPete]

Miranda Devine: FBI, Secret Service butchered the Thomas Crooks case and invited conspiracies – we deserve the truth

https://nypost.com/2025/11/17/opinion/fbi-secret-service-butchered-the-thomas-crooks-case-and-invited-conspiracies-we-deserve-the-truth/

We are all owed a better explanation from the FBI and Secret Service about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump 16 months ago at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.

The president himself remains unsatisfied with the answers he’s been given about the circumstances leading to 20-year-old Thomas Crooks climbing on a rooftop with an AR-15-style rifle and firing eight times at Trump, narrowly missing his head but hitting his ear.
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There is something very wrong with the official story and that invites conspiracy theories.

The president demanded answers months ago. A man was murdered. What is going on?

Then-FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress after the July 13, 2024, attack that the bureau had found nothing in Crooks’ online history that pointed to a motive or political ideology.

A week later, Wray’s deputy Paul Abbate told Congress that comments posted on one of Crooks’ social media accounts “appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature.”
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Thanks to an enterprising source who uncovered Crooks’ hidden digital footprint, we can see that Abbate misled Congress by omission, because he left out an entire section of Crooks’ online interactions from January to August 2020 when he did an ideological backflip and went from rabidly pro-Trump to rabidly anti-Trump and then went dark, never seeming to post again.
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The official narrative claimed he acted alone and without a clear motive, ideology or digital footprint.

Yet the source found reams of information that shows Crooks “was not simply some unknowable lone actor … He left a digital trail of violent threats, extremist ideology and admiration for mass violence. He spoke openly of political assassination, posted under his real name and was even flagged by other users who mentioned law enforcement in their replies. Despite this, his account remained active for more than five years — and was only removed the day after the shooting.
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The FBI refused to comment when asked on Sunday whether Crooks was ever investigated, visited or in some way brought to the attention of the agency before he tried to assassinate Trump, or whether there was an FBI file on Crooks before Butler.

The FBI also refused to comment on why it has not been forthcoming on congressional oversight requests.

Wray told Congress on July 24 2024, 11 days after the shooting, that the bureau “did not have any [prior] information about the shooter” and that “he was not in our holdings before the shooting.” He said the FBI ran a search for Crooks through its databases, and he was not found.

Were he still FBI Director, Wray would continue to be full-Sergeant-Schulz. Hopefully Patel can extract an explanation of whether the "investigation" was monumentally incompetent and incurious or the FBI covered up and lied.

[SVPete]

Here’s What Kash Patel's FBI Uncovered About the Trump Assassination Attempt

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/11/25/heres-what-the-fbi-uncovered-about-the-trump-assassination-attempt-n4946381

Herridge asked Patel why Crooks, at just 20 years old, was fixated on taking out Donald Trump as he moved toward the GOP nomination last year. At the time, the FBI claimed ideology played no role. But that was not the case.

“He [Crooks], as has been publicized, had a basically hateful relationship with the United States government, talked disparagingly about both political parties, to include President Trump, and talked about the need to take matters into his own hands,” Patel said of the shooter's motive. “And, unfortunately, that’s what he did.”

“When we came in, our job was to both treat the president as a president [of] the United States and [as] a victim and remind the American public that there were three other victims, and, tragically, one person [Corey Comperatore] even lost his life,” Patel explained. “So, there are certain victims’ rights that we have to honor.”

Patel continued, “But what we did and what we presented and what we released is the full findings that we are able to publicize to the world that definitively answer questions regarding Butler. We seized dozens and dozens of devices. We exploited and got into every single one of those devices. We got on to all the online platforms and social media sites of the assailant, of Crooks. And we did a recanvassing just to double down since we got in and inherited this case, and we gave out information to Congress and the public that the prior administration refused to do.”

My emphasis. The FBI did find all Crooks's online stuff recently made public, but LIEden's InJustice Department and FBI withheld all that info from Congress and the American public. Why it was withheld? My evidence-free speculation is that they believed it would keep the assassination attempt at the forefront of people's minds at that this would hurt Kammie's chances of becoming President.