FBI agents and other law enforcement officials last week offered US presidential candidate Donald Trump new specifics about the shooter, according to ABC News.
Sources said law enforcement officials held a meeting with Trump on August 1 during which they provided new details about the shooter. The meeting, led by a senior agent from the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office last week, took place during what the FBI previously described as a standard victim interview. However, Trump fielded questions, inquiring about details and specifically whether authorities had uncovered any foreign connection to the attack.
The law enforcement officials told Trump that they still cannot say for sure what prompted Crooks to target Trump at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. They added that Crooks had been searching online for both Democratic and Republican politicians in the days and weeks before the attack, and it’s possible that he decided to target Trump simply because he was the next big name to come to Pennsylvania.
Despite, they described Thomas Matthew Crooks as a strikingly intelligent man who scored over 1500 on the SAT before college, but who struggled for years with an undiagnosed disorder. To illustrate Crooks’ high level of intelligence, law enforcement officials told Trump Crooks could name any US president, from George Washington to the present day. Although he had never received such a diagnosis medically, through interviews with Crooks’ family and others who knew him, investigators learned that throughout high school, the man’s mental health swung from one side to the other.
Regarding the foreign connection issue, FBI agents told Trump that they were able to access three foreign email accounts used by Crooks because his passwords stored on his computer, but sources said they found no indication that someone else might have had a hand in the attack.
Aside from, another fascinating finding was Crooks being spotted on the roof of a nearby building long before he first opened fire, and about other claims that the Secret Service sniper who ultimately killed Crooks waited 10 minutes to take lethal action. Trump asked law enforcement officials about these claims, but law enforcement officials made it clear that such statements were not accurate.
They explained that the first time anyone saw someone on the roof of the building was about three minutes before Crooks opened fire, and the first time any law enforcement saw that the person on the roof had a gun was about 30 seconds before Crooks opened fire, sources said. The local law enforcement officer then began climbing onto the roof of the building when he confronted Crooks, who pointed a rifle at the officer, prompting the officer to fall to the ground and twist his ankle. The majority of this came from body camera video released Thursday by the Butler Township Police Department.
At a press conference on Thursday, Donald Trump confirmed that he had spoken with the FBI about Crooks, but gave no further details about the discussion, saying only that the FBI did a very good job.
