Republican lawmakers were apparently blindsided this week by new documents about Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump and was subsequently shot dead. Crooks opened fire on Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., in July 2024. A bullet grazed the then-candidate’s ear, while a rally attendee was killed as he attempted to shield his family.
"During our piece that we were working on, none of the federal agencies were working with us at all. They were going to work on their own, and they told us, ‘We're going to do ours, and then we'll get back to you.’ So this is two years later. Nobody's gotten back to us," Rep.
Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who chaired a bipartisan House task force aimed at investigating the shooting, told Fox News. "That's under the former administration. So everything that's under the executive branch at that time, under the Biden administration, we had no access to information at that time," he said.
Kelly also said the House task force's Dec. 10, 2024, report was written largely with input from local authorities and little from the federal level. COLE ALLEN CLUES PILE UP AS THOMAS CROOKS’ SECRETS DIED WITH HIM — EXPERTS CITE EVIDENCE GAPS IN TRUMP ATTACKS "It's awfully strange that all the questions we asked, 'We'll have to get back to you on that.' And we have very limited time, as you know, to actually get to what we wanted to. So when we finished our report, it was basically based on everything that we could gather from local law enforcement, hardly anything from the feds at that time," Kelly said.
Fox News Digital reviewed the documents in question and found that Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, had searched for ways to prevent his son from accessing firearms in May 2024, roughly two months before he clambered up a rooftop in his attempt to assassinate Trump. A source familiar with the task force’s work told Fox News Digital that the May 2024 search by Matthew Crooks was not known to House lawmakers during their investigation. TWO YEARS AFTER BUTLER, THREATS AGAINST TRUMP KEEP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT IN SHARP FOCUS "The Task Force report corroborates that Matthew Crooks handed Thomas Crooks the rifle used in the assassination attempt on July 13, 2024," the source said.
Kelly’s spokesman told Fox News Digital that his office was not aware of federal authorities interviewing Crooks’ family. 3 SECRET SERVICE OFFICIALS UNDER INTERNAL INVESTIGATION FOR POTENTIAL MISCONDUCT The records were obtained by Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, as part of his ongoing inquiry into the Butler assassination attempt. So far, the records turned over to the Senate show Thomas’ actions were a surprise to his family, and his motive is still a mystery. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee told Fox News Digital that they had yet to see the FBI documents, but argued that it was reason enough that the full details of that day in July 2024 needed to be brought to light.
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