Former US President Donald Trump has consented to meet with the FBI for a “victim interview” about this month’s assassination attempt, FBI authorities announced Monday.
Federal Bureau of Investigation officials provided an update on the state of the investigation into the July 13 shooting, saying they have yet to uncover a motivation for the attack by the 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks.
They said Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service sniper after firing eight bullets during Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, looked to be a “loner” and that no co-conspirators had been uncovered.
According to FBI special agent Kevin Rojek, the interview with Trump will be “a standard victim interview as we would conduct for any other victim of a crime under any other circumstances.”
“We want to get his perspective on what he observed,” Rojek said.
FBI officials said they have interviewed dozens of people who knew or interacted with Crooks, including family members, co-workers, former teachers, classmates and others.
“We have learned the subject was highly intelligent, attended college and maintained steady employment,” Rojek said. “His primary social circle appears to be limited to his immediate family as we believe he had few friends and acquaintances.”
The FBI officials said Crooks’s parents have said they had no advance knowledge of their son’s plot. “We do find that to be credible at this stage,” Rojek said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, testifying before a congressional committee last week, said Crooks had searched online for details about the November 1963 shooting of US president John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald.
“On July 6, he did a Google search for, quote, ‘How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?’” Wray said.
Rojek said the investigation has revealed that Crooks “also made searches related to power plants, mass shooting events, information on improvised explosive devices and the attempted assassination of the Slovakian prime minister earlier this year.”
‘Suspicious person’
Crooks was stationed on the roof of an adjacent building when he opened fire on Trump with an AR-15 assault weapon shortly after 6:00 p.m., while the Republican presidential candidate was speaking at a rally in Butler.
Trump was shot in the ear, two rally goers were gravely hurt, and a 50-year-old Pennsylvania firefighter was killed.
Rojek stated that Crooks was identified as a “suspicious person” by law authorities about an hour before the incident.
“A local officer took a photo of the subject and sent it to other SWAT operators on scene, as well as local command personnel,” he said.
SWAT operators observed Crooks about 30 minutes later, shortly after 5:30 pm, using a range finder and browsing news websites on his phone, he said.
At approximately 6:08 pm police dashcam video observed Crooks traversing the roof of the building from where he ultimately fired his shots, Rojek said.
“At approximately 6:11 pm a local police officer was boosted onto the roof by another officer where he encountered the subject,” he said.
Crooks pointed his rifle at the officer, who “immediately dropped to the ground,” he said. “Approximately 25 to 30 seconds after this encounter, the subject fired eight rounds before being successfully neutralized.”
US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned last week after acknowledging the agency had failed in its mission to prevent the assassination attempt.