Bethal Park, Pennsylvania – a Former FBI Special Agent After federal investigators decoded the killer’s cellphone and laptop in hopes of uncovering Thomas Crooks’ motive, they gave an inside look at what they’re looking for.
Retired FBI Senior Special Agent Scott Duffy told Fox News Digital that the FBI had successfully unlocked Crooks’ electronic devices, making it possible to download the contents of his digital footprint.
“The FBI’s cell phone analysis and surveillance team will be able to look at his cell phone and download whatever is stored on it through the software and cell tower information that they have,” he said.
“This is a rural area so has he left the area? Has he been out or been in contact with anyone?,” Duffy said. “They’ll be able to work out his location.”
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Undated photograph of Thomas Matthew Crookes. (Courtesy of AFP)
Duffy said the FBI’s capabilities were “second to none” and that the bureau would thoroughly search Crooks’ electronic devices.
“Investigators will be looking to see who he was in contact with, if anyone,” he said, “and if he wasn’t in contact with anyone, they’ll be gathering information about what he was researching, reading, studying.”
The Justice Department’s complaint limited the FBI’s interactions with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. (Getty Images)
Duffy said the FBI plans to investigate how much knowledge Crooks had about bomb-making.
The FBI previously said 20-year-old Crooks had explosives in his car, which was parked near the Pennsylvania rally, and had bomb-making materials at his home.
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“How advanced was he with those devices? Were they improvised devices and already had them ready to go or were they just materials to confuse the dogs for some reason or something?” he said.
“And they [the FBI] “You’d want to know how long he’d been doing this for,” Duffy said, “the research that led to the ultimate act of lifting a rifle onto a rooftop and firing into the crowd and ultimately at former U.S. President Donald Trump.”
FBI agents search the neighborhood of suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, on Monday, July 15, 2024. Agents have spoken with neighbors about Crooks, who was killed Saturday after plotting to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Duffy said federal agencies would also make any final notes Crooks left before the attack at the former president’s rally a priority.
“Did he make a statement? Did he write anything? Did he keep a diary?” he said. “I’m just gathering evidence.”
A former FBI agent said that if Crooks had not been killed by US Secret Service agents, the FBI would have questioned him and determined his motive.
“The ultimate goal is to get inside his mind, and that’s exactly what the FBI would do if they took him into custody and interrogated him. But we know that’s not true.”
“So they had to look at a ton of evidence and it wouldn’t have been any better if he had kept a diary, done some research or reached out to close friends,” he said.
The Bethel Park School District has confirmed that the suspect in the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump is a Bethel Park High School graduate. Thomas Matthew Crooks is a graduate of Bethel Park High School in the class of 2022. (Bethel Park School District)
Duffy said he hoped a “volume of evidence” would shed light on Crooks’ political leanings and whether he suffered from any mental illness.
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“Was he anti-government? Was he seeing someone for a mental health evaluation?”
A view of a street sign in front of the home of 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, named by the FBI as a “person of interest” in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, USA, on July 15, 2024. (REUTERS/Aaron Jozefczyk)
He said the FBI would “leave no stone unturned” to uncover Crooks’ motive.
“I often say that any crime, when you have someone who commits a crime this high-profile, this heinous, and who is killed either by suicide or by the actions of law enforcement, the only way the FBI can provide at least some information is through the information that is available to them through their devices, their friends, their associates and their colleagues, because the motive is ultimately and always in the mind of the perpetrator,” he said.
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“And even if there aren’t any interviews, we would like to see at least some kind of document released.”
