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Judicial Watch has forced the release of FBI records that paint a disturbing new picture of Thomas Crooks, the would-be assassin who nearly killed President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania last July. The conservative watchdog group obtained 27 heavily redacted pages through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, and what they reveal should trouble every American who cares about accountability.
According to witness statements contained in the documents, Crooks was not some silent loner who snapped without warning. He was actively making what witnesses described as “hateful comments” directed at President Trump while at the rally site. One woman told FBI agents she observed Crooks involved in an altercation with a group of people before the shooting, then watched him climb the building shortly after. Another rally attendee reported hearing Crooks making those same hateful remarks just before Trump took the stage.
Think about that for a moment. This wasn’t a stealth operation. This was a young man openly expressing hostility toward the President of the United States, getting into confrontations with Trump supporters, and then scaling a building in plain view. How does someone do all of that without drawing immediate intervention from the very security forces tasked with protecting a former president?
The documents also reveal that another attendee had spotted Crooks acting suspiciously in the parking lot and even photographed his Hyundai’s license plate. She contacted the National Threat Operations Center to report what she saw. That is exactly the kind of citizen vigilance we should expect and celebrate. But it also raises an uncomfortable question: if a civilian could identify the threat and gather intelligence on the suspect, why couldn’t the Secret Service?
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, cut straight to the point. “It should not have taken two years and a federal lawsuit to find out that the Butler shooter was involved in an altercation with Trump supporters and made hateful comments towards Trump at the Butler rally minutes before he nearly killed Trump,” he said. “These new FBI documents are disturbing and astonishing, detailing more conduct by the shooter that should have gotten the attention of Secret Service.”
The FBI concluded last year that Crooks acted alone. Maybe he did. But the circumstances surrounding this assassination attempt continue to strain credulity. We know Crooks flew a drone over the fairgrounds at least twice on the day of the rally, during the same window when Secret Service was reportedly experiencing connectivity issues. We know a Beaver County sniper team member photographed Crooks checking his phone just one hour before the shooting. We know local law enforcement had eyes on him before he ever pulled the trigger.
And yet, somehow, a 20-year-old managed to position himself on a rooftop 150 yards from the stage, put the former president in his scope, and fire. Trump took a bullet to the ear. Firefighter Corey Comperatore lost his life shielding his family. Two other Americans were critically wounded.
The official narrative has always been that this was a tragic confluence of security failures, a perfect storm of incompetence. But with each document release, with each new detail that emerges, that explanation becomes harder to accept. How many red flags need to wave before we acknowledge that something went catastrophically wrong in Butler, and that the American people deserve real answers?
Judicial Watch had to sue to get these documents. That fact alone tells you everything you need to know about the transparency we’ve received from federal law enforcement regarding the most serious assassination attempt on a president or presidential candidate since 1981. The FBI and Secret Service have circled the wagons, released information grudgingly, and hoped the public would move on.
We shouldn’t move on. Corey Comperatore’s family deserves the truth. The two men still recovering from their wounds deserve the truth. President Trump deserves the truth. And the American people deserve to know whether their security apparatus is capable of protecting its leaders, or whether political considerations and bureaucratic inertia have rendered it ineffective.
These new FBI records don’t close the book on Butler. They open new chapters that demand investigation. Congress should subpoena every witness, every communication, every document related to that day. The failures were systemic, and systemic failures require systemic accountability.
Because next time, and there will be a next time if we don’t fix what broke, the outcome might be different. And no amount of redacted pages or carefully worded press releases will bring back what we lose.
Source: The Gateway Pundit via Judicial Watch
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