The shooter who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump appears to have used the social media platform Gab to spread a message “in support of President Biden,” the platform’s founder has revealed.
Gab CEO Andrew Trouba said on Wednesday that the company learned that Thomas Matthew Crooks “may have had an account on our platform” after receiving an “urgent law enforcement request.”
The account, @epicmicrowave, which the CEO stressed “could not be verified as belonging to Mr. Crooks,” had “posted a total of 9 times on the site,” Torba tweeted just 30 minutes after receiving the law enforcement request.
“The account posted very few posts on the site, most of which were in support of President Biden,” the CEO said.
“In particular, many posts expressed support for President Biden’s COVID-19 lockdowns, border policies, and executive orders.”
Trouba shared images of pro-Biden comments from accounts with blacked-out handles.
In one post, he mocked someone who was sharing their election predictions, writing in February 2021, “You didn’t think Biden would win in a landslide either? Well, I’m not very confident in your election predictions.”
In another thread, the user defended Biden’s border policies by citing a study that compared crime statistics among illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and US citizens in Texas.
Timeline of the attempted assassination of President Trump
“The Biden Executive Order does not encourage human trafficking, because traffickers have no interest in citizenship. Similarly, the vast majority of illegal immigrants are not criminals, and in fact, several studies ( Link below“This indicates a low rate of crime committed by these individuals,” the poster reads.
“It is also unclear whether a broad path to citizenship would actually be effective in weeding out potential bad actors, hence why the system is being reviewed,” the user added.
“I am disclosing this information at significant personal and business risk,” Torba said.
“As past examples have shown, violating the Washington consensus by releasing the first conclusive evidence that the shooter was a Biden supporter — something Democrats and their media allies have tried to cover up and deny at every turn — would likely trigger an intense political and media backlash,” he wrote.
“We are preserving the account data until we receive a search warrant,” he said.
Crooks, 20, opened fire with an AR-15 rifle at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, slashing the former president’s ear and killing a rally-goer before being shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.
Authorities have yet to release details about a motive for the attack, which has sparked outrage from both parties over the Secret Service’s failure to protect a presidential candidate.
