The FBI has released new photos of the gun used to shoot Donald Trump during a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, as well as the backpack and explosives the shooter had in his car at the rally.
The pictures were released Wednesday as FBI officials gave new details around Thomas Matthew Crooks’ internet searches in the days before the shooting and how investigators are using those searches to piece together his mindset that day.
The photos show the firearm’s collapsable stock, which investigators say may have been used to conceal the rife at the site.
The FBI on Wednesday laid out how Trump’s would-be assassin had researched campaign events for the former president as well as President Joe Biden but then became “hyper-focused” on the Pennsylvania rally just 40 minutes from the shooter’s home.
Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, detailed how the shooter saw the Trump rally as a “target of opportunity.” Officials have not yet identified a motive and said that Crooks expressed “no definitive ideology.”
“We saw through our analysis of all his – particularly his online searches – a sustained detailed effort to plan an attack on some events, meaning he looked at any number of events or targets,” Rojek said. “And then, when this event was announced, the Trump rally was announced, early in July, he became hyper-focused on that specific event and looked at it as a target of opportunity.”
On July 6, nearly a week before the rally, Crooks searched online “where Will Trump speak from at Butler Farm Show” as well as “Butler Farm Show podium” and “Butler farm show photos,” Rojek said.
Two days later, Crooks searched “AGR International,” the company that owned the buildings Crooks climbed before opening fire. On July 9, Crooks searched “ballistic calculator” and the next day, he searched “weather” and “Butler.”
Crooks had been researching explosive devices for several years, according to the FBI, who said that from September 2019 to this summer, the shooter had searched terms including “how to make a bomb from fertilizer,” “detonating cord,” “blasting cap,” and “how to remote detonators work.”
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