Gunman researched JFK assassination before trying to kill Trump, says FBI

Washington: The gunman in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump is believed to have done a Google search one week before the shooting of “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?” FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Wednesday, revealing new details about a suspect he said had taken a keen interest in public figures but had otherwise not left behind clear clues of an ideological motive.

The July 6 online search, recovered from a laptop tied to 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, is a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter who killed President John F. Kennedy from a sniper’s perch in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

“That is a search that is significant in terms of his state of mind. That is the same day that it appears he registered” for the Trump rally scheduled for July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, Wray told the House Judiciary Committee.

The FBI is investigating the shooting, which killed one rallygoer and seriously injured two others, as an act of domestic terrorism. Crooks was killed by a Secret Service countersniper. The investigation has thrust the bureau into a political maelstrom months before the presidential election, with lawmakers and the public pressing for details about what may have motivated Crooks in the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.

The agency has built out a detailed timeline of Crooks’ movements and online activity, but the precise motive — or why Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was singled out — remains elusive, Wray said.

“A lot of the usual repositories of information have not yielded, anything notable in terms of motive or ideology,” Wray said.

The FBI’s assessment is that Crooks acted alone.

Wray noted that Crooks had grown interested in public officials — besides Trump, Crooks also had photos on his phone of Democratic President Joe Biden and other prominent figures — and in the days before the shooting had appeared particularly consumed by Trump.