Former President Donald Trump has agreed to be interviewed by the FBI following an attempted assassination in Pennsylvania earlier this month. The gunman behind the incident, Thomas Matthew Crooks, had conducted research on mass attacks and explosive devices before the shooting took place. The FBI stated that Trump was struck by a bullet or a fragment during the attack at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13th.
Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, mentioned that interviewing victims is standard procedure during criminal investigations, aimed at gaining their perspective on the events they experienced. Crooks, described as a highly intelligent but reclusive 20-year-old, was identified through approximately 450 interviews as having a limited social circle primarily centered around his family with few connections outside of it.
Although investigators have not determined a clear motive for targeting Trump, they believe the shooting was meticulously planned. This planning included the acquisition of chemical precursors in recent months, suspected to have been used to create explosive devices found in Crooks’ possession, as well as the deployment of a drone close to the rally site hours before the incident. Moreover, Crooks had researched information online regarding mass shootings, improvised explosive devices, and past assassination attempts, including one on Slovakia’s Prime Minister.
In a search conducted on July 6, the day Crooks registered for the Trump rally, he looked up “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?”, a reference to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. The FBI confirmed that Crooks’ parents have been fully cooperative with the investigation and had no prior knowledge of their son’s intentions. They were unaware of the extensive planning Crooks had undertaken, primarily carried out online.