FBI Records Unveiled Related to July 2024 Assassination Attempt

Judicial Watch has announced that it has obtained 249 pages of new FBI records that include a redacted “chat thread” concerning Thomas Matthew Crooks, the individual who attempted to assassinate then-presidential candidate Donald Trump during a July 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The conservative watchdog organization reported that it acquired these documents via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in July 2025, after the FBI did not respond to earlier requests for information regarding Crooks and the shooting incident.

An FBI communication dated July 19, 2024, outlines a cell phone exchange between Crooks and another individual, whose name has been blacked out, spanning from May 21, 2023, to January 3, 2024. The messages sent by Crooks mainly consist of short phrases like “Hello red,” “Yolo,” “890,” and random letter combinations. The incoming messages were completely obscured.

Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, stated that these documents indicate the bureau is hiding too much information.

“These latest records reveal more pieces of the puzzle surrounding Thomas Crooks,” Fitton mentioned, urging the FBI to “stop the slow drip of heavily redacted records” and release the complete investigative file, especially following the recent death of James Copenhaver, a rally attendee who was injured during the attack on President Trump.

Another document, titled “Samsung Messaging Review” from July 18, 2024, identified additional communications on Crooks’ phone as “pertinent,” including campaign requests from then-U.S. Senate candidate Raphael Warnock and notifications for DHL shipments from Hong Kong.

A significant portion of the materials included FBI laboratory analyses of a drone. A report dated July 19, 2024, indicated that agents obtained 40 images and eight flight logs spanning from February 6 to February 27, 2024, in the Pittsburgh area. Seven of the drone flights occurred around Allegheny-West, while the eighth took place over Butler on July 13, 2024, the day of the shooting. The drone had been activated 15 times.

In another release, Judicial Watch noted that the records comprise texts identified under a “January 7 Intel Chain” label, referencing “two CIA bomb techs” involved at a pipe-bomb scene and “several CIA dog teams on standby.”

The group stated that the entire file amounts to roughly 75,000 pages, and at a rate of about 500 pages per month, it could take 12 years to be fully released.

This release follows Trump’s claim in September on Truth Social that the Butler attack was “all a Democrat plot” and that much of the pertinent case file was “missing, altered, corrupted, or gone” by the time he took office. Meanwhile, the FBI has maintained that Crooks acted independently.