Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray, pictured in December 2023, provided lawmakers with an update on the investigation into the assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13.
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The FBI director said Wednesday that the gunman who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump searched online for information about the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy a week before the shooting.
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Christopher Wray provided lawmakers with an update on the investigation into the July 13 shooting of Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa. That information included information retrieved from a computer linked to the 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Crooks, that showed he spent at least a week planning the attack.
“An analysis of a laptop that the investigation linked to the shooter shows that on July 6, he Googled ‘How far was Oswald from Kennedy?’” Wray said. “That’s a search that clearly has significant implications for his mental state. It’s the same day that he appears to have signed up for the Butler rally.”
Lee Harvey Oswald was the gunman who shot former President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, in 1963.
Wray’s testimony came 11 days after Trump’s assassination. He said the FBI had yet to find any indication of Crooks’ political motives or ideology, but he provided some details about him and the timeline leading up to the shooting.
Investigators believe Crooks visited the Butler protest site three times, Wray said.
The first time was a week before the event, when he was there for about 20 minutes. The second time was the morning of Trump’s rally, when he appeared to be there for about 70 minutes, Wray said. The third time was later that afternoon, hours before the event — and he never left.
During that final visit, Wray said, Crooks flew a drone over the protest site for 11 minutes around 4 p.m., about 200 yards from the stage. Investigators recovered the drone in the gunman’s car, along with its controller. They were able to reverse the device’s flight path, Wray said, but they don’t know exactly what Crooks could have seen or why.
Wray also discussed three explosive devices recovered by investigators: two from Crooks’ vehicle and one from his home. Wray described the devices as “relatively crude,” but said they were capable of being detonated remotely.
A transmitter was found on Crooks’ body, but it appeared the receivers on the explosive devices were not turned on so he could not have detonated them, he said.
