Investigators working to determine a motive behind the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump have found on the suspect’s phone internet searches for both Trump and President Joe Biden, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
The suspect, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, had also searched for the dates of Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and for those of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the sources said.
The suspect’s phone was one of several devices that law enforcement investigators had collected, as they worked to piece together a timeline of the assassination attempt against the former president during a Saturday rally.
The Butler Farm Show, site of a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, is seen Monday July 15, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Gene J. Puskar/AP
The FBI early on Sunday had identified Crooks as the suspect. The U.S. Secret Service said snipers had killed Crooks the scene. Firefighter Corey Comperatore, a dad who was attending the rally, was killed, and two other bystanders injured, officials said.
The searches compounded the questions investigators had as they searched for a reason for the shooting, including a possible political motive. Crooks had been registered as a Republican voter, according to state records. But a $15 donation to a progressive group was also recorded under “Thomas Crooks” in January 2021, according to FEC records.
A view of police tape near the home of 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, named by the FBI as the “subject involved” in the attempted assassination of former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, U.S. July 16, 2024.
Carlos Osorio/Reuters
As investigators analyzed the suspect’s phone, they looked at his search history, which included the queries for Trump and Biden. But that search history didn’t immediately appear to reveal Crooks’ political views, sources told ABC News.
Law enforcement officials investigating the assassination attempt told lawmakers on Wednesday that 20 minutes had passed between the time Secret Service snipers first spotted Crooks on a rooftop and the time the first shots were fired, according to several law enforcement officials and lawmakers briefed on the matter.
Officials said the snipers spotted the suspect, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, on the roof of a building outside the security zone at the rally Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, at 5:52 p.m. ET. The shooting happened at 6:12 p.m. ET, 20 minutes later, the sources said.