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The gunman who tried to kill former president Donald Trump conducted internet searches related to power plants, mass shooting events and the attempted assassination this year of Slovakia’s prime minister, FBI officials said Monday, offering new details about what they said was the gunman’s “careful planning” for the attack.
The details, including about the shooter’s interest in the attempted killing of Prime Minister Robert Fico, were released as agents continue to unpack data pulled from the cellphones, laptop and other digital devices used by the gunman, Matthew Thomas Crooks.
In a call with reporters on Monday, FBI officials said Trump has agreed to an FBI interview about the assassination attempt against him at a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
“We want to get his perspective as to what he observed,” said Kevin Rojek, who heads the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, which is leading the investigation. “It is a standard interview we would do for any other victim of crime.”
Crooks’s motive for the shooting is still unclear, FBI officials said, and they have not yet found evidence tying any other people to the attack. The officials said they plan to continue searching through the gunman’s phones and his gaming and social media accounts to identify a possible motive or any indication that he may have worked with an accomplice. They said he used at least some encrypted communication accounts.
Agents have conducted more than 450 interviews, including with Crooks’s parents, who did not seem to have any indication of the attack before it occurred and have been cooperating with authorities, officials said.
“We believe the suspect made significant efforts to conceal his activities,” Rojek said.
Trump was speaking at an outdoor rally when Crooks, 20, opened fire from a rooftop just outside the security perimeter. The gunman fired at least eight shots, killing one person in the crowd, critically injuring two others and wounding Trump before being killed by a Secret Service sniper.
The FBI said last week that a bullet or bullet fragment grazed the former president’s ear.
Much of the investigation has focused on security failures that allowed a man with a rifle to obtain a perch from which to shoot at the president from about 150 yards away. Rojek said Crooks used some heating and cooling equipment near the building to climb up onto the roof.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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English (US) ·