Bethel Park, Pennsylvania – A former Nevada law enforcement expert who served on the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force said modern technology could complicate efforts to determine the gunman’s motive for the shooting at former President Trump’s Pennsylvania rally.
Former Las Vegas police detective Ashton Pack described obstacles that investigators may encounter trying to access Thomas Matthew Crooks’ phone.
The FBI said Sunday night that it had obtained 20-year-old Crooks’ cellphone for investigation purposes after he plotted to assassinate former President Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday.
A senior FBI official told Fox News on Sunday night that the shooter appears to have acted alone, but acknowledged that the agency did not have access to his cell phone.
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File photo of Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 2022 graduate of Bethel Park High School. Crooks is the alleged gunman behind the attempted assassination of former President Trump on Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Source: Fox News Digital)
“In America today, criminal investigations essentially require access to and use of these digital devices,” Pack told Fox News Digital. “If a criminal doesn’t have evidence on a phone or some other digital device, there’s no crime happening.”
“The problem is trying to get into the device,” he said.
Thomas Matthew Crooks in an undated yearbook photograph. (Source: Fox News Digital)
Pack, a former FBI special agents, said that even if Crooks’ phone fell into the hands of the nation’s top investigator, it would be difficult to access the encrypted device.
“It’s very difficult to break into encrypted, locked devices these days,” he said. “Certain companies, like Apple, can break into these devices.”
He said US government agencies would need to seek the cooperation of a “foreign adversary” or a “foreign nation state actor” to access Crooks’ locked cell phone.
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Undated photograph of Thomas Matthew Crookes. (Courtesy of AFP)
“Do some government agencies have access to certain cell phones? Of course they do,” he said, “but that’s as it pertains to people who are not U.S. citizens or outside the continental U.S.”
It’s a story of advanced espionage games.
“That means foreign adversaries, people in foreign nation-states,” he said. “That’s sophisticated espionage. No matter what the conspiracy theorists say, no civilian law enforcement agency in the United States would use such tactics.”
Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, police officers speak with one another outside the home of 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was named by the FBI as a “person of interest” in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 15, 2024. (REUTERS/Aaron Jozefczyk)
Mr Pack said the FBI could be faced with a “dilemma” if it tried to decrypt Mr Crooks’ phone.
“But depending on the level of encryption that your phone has, it can be compromised, and that’s the dilemma,” he said. “Here in the United States, we all have a right to privacy and a right to personal safety and security, which is guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
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“So law enforcement has to get a search warrant, but private law enforcement has no way of knowing what’s in there unless they have the passcode,” he said.
The FBI is investigating Thomas Crooks’ cell phone. (Getty Images)
Pack offered his side of the story after FBI Special Agent Kevin Rojek in Pittsburgh said “the intelligence that we have” indicates Crooks acted alone.
“Based on the information we have at this time, the shooter acted alone and there is no public safety concern at this time,” Rojek said at a press conference Sunday.
“While we have not identified any ideology associated with this case, we would like to remind everyone that this investigation is still in its early stages.”
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When asked by Fox News whether the FBI knew which phone company Crooks was using, Rojek said, “We are not in a position to disclose the police department’s phone service provider.”
The FBI confirmed on Monday that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-New York) had been briefed by the bureau about Crooks’ phone.
