Appearing here in December 2023, FBI Director Christopher Wray gave lawmakers an update on Wednesday on the investigation into the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
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The gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump searched online for information about the killing of former President John F. Kennedy in the week before the shooting, the FBI director said Wednesday.
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Christopher Wray gave lawmakers an update on the investigation into the July 13 shooting of Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Information extracted from a computer connected to Thomas Crooks suggests he spent at least a week planning the attack.
“Analysis of a laptop associated with the investigation showed that on July 6, he searched on Google ‘How far was Oswald from JFK?'” Wray said. “It was obviously important to his mental state. It appears he signed up for the Butler rally on the same day.
Lee Harvey Oswald was the gunman who shot and killed former President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, in 1963.
Wray’s testimony came 11 days after Trump’s assassination. He said the FBI still has found no indication of Crooks’ motives or political ideology, but he did fill out some details and timelines about him before the shooting.
Ray said investigators believe Crooks visited the Butler rally three times.
The first time was a week before the event and he was there for about 20 minutes. The second time, Wray said, was the morning of the Trump rally, when he appeared to have been at the scene for about 70 minutes. The third time was later that afternoon, a few hours before the event – and he never left.
During his last visit, Ray said, Crooks flew the drone over the rally grounds for 11 minutes about 4 p.m., about 200 yards from the stage. Investigators found the drone and its controller inside the shooter’s car. Ray said they’ve been able to reverse engineer the device’s flight path, but they don’t know exactly what Crooks was able to see or why.
Ray also discussed the three explosive devices investigators found: two from Crooks’ car and one at his residence. Ray called the devices “relatively crude” but said they did have the ability to detonate remotely.
He said a transmitter was found on Crooks’ body, but the receivers on the explosive devices did not appear to be on, so he was unable to detonate them.
