Washington — FBI Director Christopher Wray testified Wednesday before House lawmakers about the investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, revealing new key points about the shooter’s movements in the era before the July 13 shooting in Pennsylvania.
Wray told members of the House Judiciary Committee that the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, flew a drone near the rally site about two hours before opening fire. Wray said investigators recovered the drone from Crooks’ vehicle and that the workplace believed he was watching video streamed from the device to scout the area.
The FBI leader also said agents recovered a total of 3 “relatively rudimentary” explosive devices: two from Crooks’ vehicle and one from his residence. Crooks had a transmitter that would have allowed him to remotely detonate the devices in his car, the bomb. The receivers were turned off, Wray said.
Eight rounds of spent bullets were on the roof where Crooks opened fire, Wray confirmed. The gunman killed one player and wounded Trump and two others.
Investigators managed to gain access to Crooks’ phone, which Wray said was a “significant technical challenge. ” He said officials discovered Crooks used encrypted messaging apps to communicate.
The FBI, which is investigating the shooting, calling it a possible act of domestic terrorism, does not yet have “a clear idea” of the shooter’s motive, Wray said. But the researchers found that Crooks gave the impression of being “very focused. “Trump and the July 6 rally. An examination of his computer revealed that he had searched for “how far is Oswald from Kennedy?”that day, when he also registered to attend the rally.
Here’s how it went:
The Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearing took place shortly after 10 a. m. with an opening by Jordan.
The Ohio Republican opened the hearing by paying tribute to Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who died Friday.
“He was just a great soul that we all liked,” Jordan said.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, the committee’s most level-headed Democrat, also made comments in Lee’s memory.
“We are better for having known her and the American people are better for having her by our side all those years,” he said.
In his opening remarks, Jordan raised questions about Trump’s assassination attempt, adding Secret Service resources to the former president; what happened between the moment Crooks, the shooter, met on the roof and Trump ran off the scene; and why the former president allowed Crooks to speak at the rally when authorities had already deemed Crooks a suspect.
“We want to know what happened game after game, moment after moment, moment after moment, the communications that took place in the critical five minutes,” Jordan said.
He suggested that Wray be with the committee and the country.
“A significant part of the country has a healthy skepticism” about the FBI’s ability to conduct an open and transparent investigation, Jordan said, criticizing Justice Department Chairman Biden.
Nadler, the most level-headed Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, made his own opening by emphasizing that while he disagrees with Trump on nearly every issue, he denounces the shooting at his rally in Pennsylvania.
“I unequivocally and shamelessly condemn, with each and every fiber of my being, the attempt on his life,” he declared. “This is not just an attack on one man, but an attack on our democracy. Political violence erodes the very foundation of our nation. “
The New York Democrat indexed the recent violence against political leaders and said Trump’s assassination attempt was not a surprise. He then accused Republicans of proceeding to use inflammatory rhetoric, even after the shooting, and criticized his fellow Republicans for remaining silent on those comments.
Nadler apologized to Wray and said that despite supporting the FBI in its work, some Republicans targeted the bureau and its agents and asked for funding.
“It is despicable, especially on the part of the party that claims to be blue,” he said.
Wray was sworn in and delivered his opening speech, which began with his condolences to Lee and the victims of the Butler shooting, adding to Corey Comperatore, who died at the rally, and Trump, who was wounded when a bullet grazed his ear.
“The attempted assassination of the former president is an attack on our democracy and our democratic procedure and we will not tolerate or tolerate any political violence, especially a despicable narrative of this magnitude,” Wray said.
The FBI director said agents were racing “tirelessly” to track down what happened at the rally and said the bureau pulled out all the stops, criminal and national security, to do so.
“We will leave no stone unturned,” he said. “The shooter was possibly dead, but the FBI investigation is ongoing. “
The FBI’s investigation into the shooting is ongoing and its assessment of the shooter and his movements continues to evolve, Wray said, but he told lawmakers he hopes to provide them with “as much data as possible, given where we are right now. “
Wray’s pledge of transparency follows former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s own appearance before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Monday, in which she continually declined to answer questions and cited the FBI investigation as the explanation for why she failed to provide information to lawmakers. She resigned Wednesday after lawmakers from both parties expressed frustration with her testimony.
Rep. Dan Bishop, a North Carolina Republican, began with questions and asked if Crooks fired 8 bullets before he was killed by a Secret Service sniper. Wray showed that there were 8 boats on the roof and then showed that Crooks had a drone.
The FBI is still investigating how he was able to fire so many shots, Wray said. When asked why Trump was allowed on stage, Wray reiterated that the FBI investigation focused on the shooter and “everything similar to the attack on him. “
“Obviously, I absolutely sense the intense interest and attention to the Secret Service’s performance, actions, decision-making, etc. ,” Wray said, though he added that the FBI is investigating the shooter’s motives, preparations before the shooting and whether There were accomplices or co-conspirators.
The FBI director said the bureau had not uncovered any accomplices “at this time,” but noted that the investigation was ongoing.
Wray provided key points to lawmakers about the drone recovered from Crooks’ vehicle, as well as the explosive devices discovered in his vehicle and the shooter’s use of encrypted messaging apps on his phone.
Regarding the drone, Wray said the device and a controller were recovered from Crooks’ car and are being analyzed by the FBI. He said the gunman flew the drone around the domain, not above the scene, but about two hundred yards away, around 3:50 p. m. or four p. m. local time on the day of shooting.
“We, we don’t know yet, so that’s one of the things that has nuance because of our ongoing review — that he was live-streaming, watching the footage” for about 11 minutes, Wray said.
The FBI director said the bureau recovered a total of three explosive devices, two from Crooks’ vehicle and one from his residence. He described these devices as “relatively rudimentary” explosives. He said the explosives were provided with receivers that could have allowed them to be detonated remotely. Crooks himself owned a transmitter, Wray said.
“At the moment, it turns out that because of the on/off position of the receivers, if I had tried to detonate those devices from the ceiling, it wouldn’t have worked, but that doesn’t mean the explosives weren’t dangerous. Wray said.
The FBI director said the FBI monitored access to Crooks’ phone, which he said posed a “significant technical challenge,” and discovered that Crooks had encrypted messaging apps.
“In that sense, I would say it’s unfortunately commonplace and it’s a challenge” for the FBI and state and local authorities, he said.
Wray said the FBI interviewed law enforcement from the scene of the attack.
Wray rejected some Republicans’ threats to invest in the FBI, calling Democrats of his investment “incredibly short-sighted. ”
He warned that reducing investment would hurt local authorities.
The committee returned from a recess shortly before 11:30 a. m. and California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat, initiated questions. She apologized to Wray for the vitriol directed at him following conspiracy theories and other claims about him online.
When asked through Lofgren about what the FBI discovered on Crooks’ phone, Wray said the bureau is involved in a “legal proceeding” to access other accounts related to the shooter. The FBI is also reading other virtual devices.
“We still don’t have a clear idea of their motives,” he said.
Wray said that during an investigation, the FBI will see social media accounts, messages or a manifesto that may shed light on a cell phone, but agents have not yet seen that with Crooks.
“We don’t see it, but we are executing it because it is one of the central problems for us,” he said.
Wray said Crooks appears to have investigated public figures “in general,” albeit through news articles. Photos of officials discovered on his phone were related to those articles, he said.
Questioned through Lofgren, Wray said investigators “located several weapons related to the shooter and his circle of relatives; I believe there were a total of 14 in the home. “
“The weapon that he used for the attempted murder was an AR-type rifle that he obtained legally, which he, if I understand, acquired, I believe, truly from his father, who originally obtained it,” Wray said. Again, legally. “
Crooks lived with his parents in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and his inner circle cooperated with the investigation.
Wray told Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, that the FBI “had no data on the shooter” and “was not on our property prior to the shooting. “
The FBI leader said the bureau searched its databases for criminals and did not find them.
Gaetz then addressed questions about President Biden’s physical condition and whether Wray had detected cognitive impairment in briefings with him.
“All of my interactions with the current president have been professional,” Wray said.
He said his briefings with Biden were “uneventful and uneventful. “
Gaetz continued to press Wray about his pleasure in running with Biden, with the FBI leader saying their interactions went “completely fine. “
“There’s nothing significant in the area you’re talking about,” Wray said.
In an exchange with Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat, Wray showed that Crooks had purchased a ladder before the shooting, which he said was about five feet high.
“But most importantly, we didn’t find the ladder at the site, so it’s not clear that he used the ladder to climb onto the roof,” he said.
The FBI is still investigating how the Crooks gained access to the roof, Wray continued.
Wray reiterated that the shooter fired at least 8 shots from the ceiling and then to lawmakers that Crooks’ AR-style rifle had a folding stock.
The FBI leader said this feature “may have been the reason it would have been less easy for other people to observe. “
The first people at the rally who saw Crooks with the gun observed him while he was already on the roof where he fired, Wray said, and the FBI has yet to locate any witnesses. having noticed him walking with the gun.
Wray said foldable inventory is “potentially a feature that could be applicable in this regard. “
Upon returning to the drone, Wray said investigators managed to design its flight path during the roughly 11 minutes it was in the air, two hours before the meeting.
“We thought it would have shown the shooter; again, we’re working on this even more, I actually need to qualify what I’m saying, but I’m looking to be transparent and lenient here. We think that would have been the case. ” I showed him, in a way, what he was like when he was filming,” Wray said.
“In other words, it’s almost like giving him a rearview mirror of the scene. Except, once again, he didn’t fly over the scene when he returned later for the murder.
“We are still looking to find out exactly what he saw, because we really have to, because there is no recording of what he saw during those 11 minutes, our assumption at this point is that our experts believe it would have been live. ” Wray continued: “And by that we really want to say, ‘Okay, if this was the flight model, given the functions of the drone, what would you have noticed, what would you have noticed in those 11 minutes?'”
Wray told lawmakers that the FBI conducted an investigation of a computer connected to the shooter and found that on July 6, a week before Butler’s rally, he Googled “how far Oswald is from Kennedy,” referring to Lee. Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
“It’s an obvious pursuit in terms of their thinking,” he said.
That day, he registered for Trump’s rally in Butler, Wray said.
Learn here.
The FBI director provided more main points about the devices and accounts the bureau held, saying that “the same old data repositories have yet to reveal anything notable in terms of reason or ideology. “
Wray, however, said that Crooks was interested in public figures “more generally” and that since about July 6 he had been “very focused on” the Trump-Butler rally.
When asked about the officials’ photos, Wray said the photos recovered from the shooter’s devices are cached photos from news article searches.
“As for the photographs that are like this, there doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or explanation as to why so far, other than that they’re all prominent public figures. But they cover either party, they cover Americans and even some foreign audiences. officials,” he said.
He said one news source “doesn’t seem to imply much motive” and clarified that it doesn’t appear to be any kind of hit list, but rather cached photos from news searches.
“So far there is no noticeable trend in these specific data,” Wray said.
Regarding attempts to influence the 2024 election, Wray told Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. , that the FBI has found that the Russian government “continues to influence and interfere in a variety of tactics with our democracy, with our electoral process”. “
He said that in recent weeks, the FBI announced it had taken down an artificial intelligence-enhanced Russian social media bot farm designed to be an influence operation. Some of the bot profiles claimed to be Americans.
“They’re still there,” Wray said. We’ve noticed this election cycle after election cycle. “
He declined to say whether the Russians have a candidate they would prefer to win in November, adding that such attempts to influence the U. S. election are limited to Russia, but also to Iran in 2020 and, recently, China.
Wray explained to lawmakers what they had learned about the shooter and his interactions with others. He said there is no evidence exposed through the FBI that the Crooks had accomplices or co-conspirators, foreign or domestic. Investigators are “extremely focused” on whether he was in contact. with no one else before the attack, he said.
“There doesn’t seem to be a lot of interaction between him, face-to-face or digitally, with a lot of people,” Wray said. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t any. “
The FBI leader said that in interviews conducted as part of his investigation, Crooks described himself as a “loner. “He said it “kind of matches what we see” on the shooter’s devices. For example, the shooter’s contact list is very short compared to what the FBI expected.
Reacting to questions from Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis. , Wray said he was “increasingly concerned” that terrorists “might try to exploit vulnerabilities” at the United States-Mexico border and other ports of access to facilitate an attack on the United States. States.
“I think it’s something we want to get involved in,” he said, adding, “You don’t have to have a lot of foreign terrorists to be a genuine problem. “
Wray later said that when it comes to dealing with terrorist threats, the United States wants more from its foreign partners.
In an exchange with Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, Wray asked if FBI agents had sent text messages or emails about Trump’s survival of the attempt on his life in Butler, or if they had published an editorial about it.
Wray said there was one example where an individual, who is not an FBI agent, had “posted anything that I considered outrageous, absolutely out of place and unacceptable. “
This has been forwarded to the FBI Inspection Division, which conducts internal investigations, he said.
In a heated exchange with Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, the congresswoman indicated that those charged as a result of her moves from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U. S. Capitol were “law-abiding citizens who were actually just “We were angry with the government. ” . »
He then asked if the FBI had confidential human resources on Capitol Hill that day.
“If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of an operation orchestrated through FBI resources or agents, the answer is no and that does a disservice to our people,” Wray said in reaction to the questions. by Scomponentez.
The FBI director was angered by Spartaz’s suggestion that the FBI was involved in the attack. He noted that 850 defendants have pleaded guilty to fees stemming from the Capitol insurrection and 180 have gone to trial.
“They all had a defense attorney, discovery and everything that the Constitution and regulations provide for them,” Wray said. “This played out in front of 15 other judges, dozens of juries, and none of them gave credence to this idea. “
Hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, prompting the evacuation of lawmakers who had piled up to certify the election results. Some of the rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and some of those who entered the Capitol carried guns, stun guns. guns, knives, baseball bats, flagpoles, and chemical sprays.
The Justice Department said in a May update related to the Jan. 6 attack that another 133 people had been charged with a deadly or harmful weapon or causing serious harm to a law enforcement officer.
As part of its investigation, the FBI searched Crooks’ home and bedroom, Wray said. Agents also searched his parents, whom the FBI director described as “cooperative. “
He described the shooter as a “pretty passionate shooting enthusiast” who belonged to clubs and went shooting. The FBI believes Crooks went to a shootout on July 12, the day before the Trump rally attack, and fired an AR-style rifle. Wray said.
That firearm “is probably” the one Crooks used at the rally.
Wray also reiterated that the FBI has known of any accomplices or co-conspirators.
“We’re still in the early stages, we haven’t noticed anything yet to recommend that he perform with others,” he said.
Wray explained when local police attending the rally met Crooks on the roof with his gun.
According to the FBI director, a member of the public spotted the shooter on the roof “a few minutes” before he began firing at 6:11 p. m. Wray said it was unclear if this individual saw Crooks with a gun, but he became aware of his presence. about. “
Meanwhile, a local police officer, with the help of another, was able to see on the ceiling, where Crooks was in a “prone shooting position. ” The gunman then turned around and confronted the officer with his gun, Wray reported.
“All of this seconds before the shooter fired,” he said.
Regardless of those two cases, local police observed the shooter with a rangefinder “suspiciously” about an hour before the assassination attempt.
Wray said the first time authorities saw Crooks with a gun “was this local officer on the roof seconds before the shooting. “
The committee suspended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. The debate will resume after the speech.
The committee reconvened shortly before 3:30 p. m. to receive more testimonials from Wray.
Wray was asked about a profile on a gaming platform that claimed to be that of the shooter. The FBI director said investigators now knew it wasn’t Crooks.
“This is a scenario where, in our efforts to provide information in real time, since we provided this information, we have learned that this profile page ‘July 13’ in the game profile, turns out to be not the shooter” , said. “It was another individual, as part of a prank about health issues, who, after the shooting, created a profile page posing as the shooter. “
Wray said the user admitted to the profile.
After July 13, he created a profile posing as the shooter, he reiterated, “and sent us down a rabbit trail that we have now closed. “
Crooks was a “gamer” and had accounts on other gambling platforms, the FBI director said, for which no data has yet been obtained.
Wray also said that although Crooks owned one phone, the FBI knew of others he might have used, such as his father’s, but not necessarily similar to the attack.
“We continue with new teams, new accounts,” he said.
Wray showed lawmakers that Crooks’ father purchased the gun used in the attack in 2013 and sold it to his son in October 2023. He also reiterated that the first time a law enforcement officer noticed Crooks on the roof, This was a few minutes before the shooting. Still not ready with a gun, and the officer began talking on the radio with other people.
The FBI leader said he had not found any witnesses who saw Crooks climb onto the roof, but that he was able to discern how he did it — mechanical devices on the floor and pipes on the side of the structure — discovered through forensic analysis.
Wray also said Trump’s ear grazed a bullet or shrapnel.
“The assassination of a president, current or former, is a historic event,” he said.
Wray asked if the attack was sophisticated. On the one hand, he said, he executed a 20-year-old young man with no criminal record and considered a loner.
“On the other hand, he obviously made some purpose in making plans or reconnaissance,” he said. Wray said he didn’t need to give Crooks credit for being an amateur or a professional.
He also condemned corporations’ encryption apps, saying they were a challenge for authorities because they can prevent authorities from accessing communications “no matter how horrific the crime, no matter how strong the legal process. “
He told lawmakers he believed Crooks’ parents called the police, concerned about their son’s disappearance, but that was after the attempted murder. The last time he saw his father, the shooter told her he was going to the shooting range, Wray said.
“Of course, he didn’t pit and he didn’t come back,” he said.
Wray said Crooks purchased 50 rounds of ammunition the day of the Trump rally shooting and said that in his “preparatory activity” he chose Trump as his target and the rally “as his time to shoot. “
But he noted that there is also the challenge of the three explosive devices — two in his vehicle and one in his apartment — that the gunman possessed “for some reason. “
“I think it’s an open question what else might have had in the brain,” Wray said.
The FBI leader said that sometimes, in similar circumstances, investigators locate a manifesto that sheds light on an author’s plans. But in this case, no such evidence has been discovered, he said.
“We’d like to have a roadmap that tells us exactly what he thought. We haven’t figured it out yet,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we won’t do it. We’re hunting and we won’t leave anything for chance. “
After a few closing questions, most of which Wray said he would give answers to lawmakers, the hearing ended shortly before five p. m.