Key takeaways from FBI director hearing after Trump assassination attempt

FBI Director Christopher Wray shed new light on Thomas Matthew Crooks’s assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, revealing details during a hearing Wednesday that included the Crook’s research activity ahead of the incident.

Wray said the bureau still could not establish Crooks’s motive for the shooting, which left one dead, two critically injured, and Trump with a minor injury.

However, Wray spoke about Crooks’s internet searches and visits to the rally site, offering some details about the assassination attempt publicly for the first time.

The hearing was far more informative than the House Oversight Committee hearing Monday that centered on security failures leading up to the assassination attempt. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, the hearing witness, faced bipartisan pressure to resign after her appearance, during which she provided few answers to lawmakers’ questions. She announced one day later that she would indeed step down from her position.

At the House Judiciary Committee hearing, Wray came armed with useful investigative details and explained that his purview was investigating the shooter rather than security incompetencies, which allowed the director to avoid taking heat for the Secret Service’s failings.

“Your ability to come in here and actually give way more than Director Cheatle ever did is somewhat refreshing,” Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC) told Wray.

Lawmakers who typically harp on the FBI’s controversies displayed a noticeable lack of hostility toward Wray as they pressed the director for answers about the historic incident, which marked the first assassination attempt on a president or former president in four decades.

Crooks’s Google search on JFK assassination

Wray revealed for the first time that the FBI analyzed a laptop tied to Crooks and found a Google search on July 6 for information about Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of former President John F. Kennedy. The search was performed on the same day Crooks registered to attend Trump’s rally.

Crooks typed into the search bar, “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy,” according to Wray.

“That’s a search that’s obviously significant in terms of his state of mind,” Wray said.

Wray also debunked prior media reports that alleged Crooks wrote on a gaming platform profile, “July 13 will be my premiere.”

“It turns out it was not the shooter, that it was some other individual as part of some sick joke who, after the shooting, created a profile page pretending to be the shooter,” Wray said. “Of course, that person has now admitted to it.”

Wray confirms the gunman had a drone

Crooks flew a drone in the 3:50 p.m. to 4 p.m. time frame on the day of the rally, Wray said.

FBI agents reverse-engineered the flight path and believe Crooks flew it about 200 yards away from the rally stage, where Trump would speak two hours later, according to Wray.

“We think, but we do not know, so again, this is one of these things that’s qualified because of our ongoing review, that he was live streaming, you know, viewing the footage” for about 11 minutes, Wray said.

Crooks purchased a ladder, but the FBI does not believe he used it to access the roof

Wray said the FBI’s evidence response team analyzed fingerprints and footprints around the American Glass Research building, where Crooks crawled onto a roof and fired shots into the rally crowd.

The FBI believes Crooks accessed the roof using “some mechanical equipment on the ground and vertical piping” on the side of the building, Wray said.

“In other words, we do not believe he used a ladder to get up there,” Wray added, countering initial reports that Crooks had used a ladder to climb up to the roof.

Wray said the FBI recovered a five-foot ladder that investigators believe Crooks purchased based on a bloodied receipt found with Crooks’s body on the roof.

Wray said the FBI did not find the ladder at the scene, but he cautioned that the FBI was “still digging into all that, things related to the ladder and his access to the roof.”

Crooks bought the AR-15 from his father

Wray said Crooks purchased the AR-15 rifle that he used in the shooting from his father in October 2023.

Crooks was a “fairly avid shooting hobbyist,” Wray said.

Wray added that Crooks purchased 50 rounds of ammunition the day of the shooting and had two explosive devices in his vehicle, as well as one in his home. He also said Crooks visited a shooting range the day before the rally and “probably” used the same rifle that he would later aim at Trump.

Still no clear motive

Wray characterized Crooks as a “loner” but believes, at this stage, he did not have any accomplices in the shooting. But what drove Crooks to carry out the shooting remains a mystery.

“I think it’s fair to say that we do not yet have a clear picture of his motive,” Wray said.

The director cautioned that the investigation was “very much ongoing” and the FBI was still working through accessing certain encrypted platforms on Crooks’s electronic devices.

Wray said Crooks’s devices revealed he was interested in general with public figures, but he became fixated on Trump around July 6, the same day he made the Kennedy query in Google.

Crooks traveled to the Butler Farm show grounds, where the rally took place, one week before the event, and then he visited it again the morning of the event for about 70 minutes, Wray said. He returned “for good” at about 3:50 p.m. when he flew the drone, the director said.

Democrats quiz Wray on Project 2025

While several Democrats also showed interest in details of the shooting, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) was among multiple lawmakers from his party who broached Project 2025, a policy plan crafted by the Heritage Foundation for the next Republican president. Trump has distanced himself from the project, saying he had no role in creating it.

“It is a game plan for President Trump’s first 120 days in office,” Johnson claimed, saying it would force Wray to report directly to Trump instead of to the attorney general. Wray called that prospect “unwise.”

Johnson also made the false claim that Project 2025 would install “38,000 MAGA loyalists” at the FBI.

“That’s frightening. That’s what Project 2025 proposes,” Johnson said.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) admonished his Democratic colleagues for raising the plan.

“They want to pin it on the presidential candidate. He didn’t author it. He didn’t condone it,” Van Drew said. “It’s getting old.”