Five weeks after the first assassination attempt on a sitting or former president in more than four decades, the public still knows very little about the 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Since his identity was revealed, the FBI and members of Congress have been scrutinizing every aspect of his life, both online and offline, trying to uncover a motive.
Even in Mr. Crooks’ hometown of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, a quiet suburb of Pittsburgh, neighbors say the Crooks family has always been, and still is, shrouded in mystery.
“Everybody around here knows everyone, but nobody knows them,” said Karen, 77, who lives on the same street as the Crooks and asked not to give her last name.
“Ask anyone on this street and they barely know these people. I don’t even know their names.”
When federal authorities searched his family’s modest home following the shooting, agents seized hardware including his laptop, two cell phones and multiple hard drives and flash drives.
The huge amount of data recovered – about 4.5 terabytes – is a potential technical treasure trove for forensic teams, but officials said it is taking time to get to definitive answers because of the sheer amount of information to sift through.
But details emerging from congressional hearings and FBI briefings to lawmakers make it clear that investigators still don’t have a satisfactory answer for why Crooks targeted Trump.
Crooks’ neighbors are still waiting for answers after the shocking revelation that they lived next door to a killer who plotted to assassinate a presidential hopeful, and are frustrated that new information is coming so slowly.
“I want to know what actually happened and what Thomas’ motive was,” neighbor Kelly Little, 39, told The Washington Post.
“Domestic terrorism is real. We have a right to know what happened, but I don’t know if we’ll get honest answers.”
Little said the quiet suburban street that was the subject of a fierce media and police offensive last month was quiet again.
“It’s been weeks since the police have been here. Nothing has happened, there’s no police activity,” she said, noting that while local officers occasionally drive by, no officers are stationed there long-term.
Crooks’ parents have avoided social interactions since the shooting, but neighbors say that was the norm even before the incident at the Trump rally in Butler.
Cullen said she really wants to know how Crooks’ parents were unaware of his plan.
“What was going on in that house? Why didn’t they know that their son was going through all that, that he was thinking these things?” she asked.
Another neighbor on the Crooks’ block, who declined to be identified, agreed that while the neighborhood has largely returned to normal, the lack of real answers remains frustrating.
“Law enforcement needs to figure out what went wrong,” she said.
“I have no idea what happened other than what’s already been reported, and there isn’t much information being reported.”
She agreed that it was odd that more wasn’t known about Crooks at this point, and this led her to believe there may be more to the story than what we already know.
“I don’t believe he acted alone, that’s my guess,” she said.
This claim contradicts statements from the FBI and Secret Service that no accomplices have been found.
But Rep. Mike Walz (R-Fla.) said last week he wasn’t satisfied with the federal investigators’ case.
“How did he learn to build an IED? How did he learn to place a remote detonator? How did he conduct a search and not detonate it?” Waltz, who serves on the House Select Committee investigating the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump, told The Washington Post.
“There are still a lot of questions.”
Walz is not the only Republican to complain about the investigation’s stalled progress.
“More than a month after the attempted assassination of former President Trump, the FBI still has not provided Congress or the public with any concrete information about Crooks’ motive,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told The Washington Post.
“The FBI needs to stop dilly-dallying and provide serious updates on their investigation. It’s a day wasted when the FBI and Secret Service don’t keep the American people informed.”
Senator Ron Johnson has accused the FBI and Secret Service of obstructing the Senate investigation into the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
Senator Johnson (R-Wis.), who is participating in the bipartisan Senate investigation into the assassination attempt on President Trump, has argued that the FBI and Secret Service frequently give them redacted documents on the day of key interviews, complicating the investigation.
“All I can say is the Secret Service and the FBI are basically footing the gas. They’re stonewalling us,” Johnson said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“From my perspective, we haven’t gotten anything from the Secret Service or the FBI. We’ve asked them for all of the 302 forms, all of the records of interviews with hundreds of individuals. They haven’t even given that to us.”
In a world where more than four-fifths of young people use at least one social media platform, Crooks’s online presence, or lack thereof, adds to the mystery.
Despite a joint investigation by law enforcement agencies and investigative journalists across the country, no profile was ever found that clearly linked Crooks to the crime.
Investigators are focusing on several accounts on overseas-based encrypted messaging services and social media platforms they believe are linked to Crooks, but the FBI has not yet released details about its findings.
Even Crooks’ political leanings remain mysterious, with investigators struggling to find more than the faintest indications of support for either party.
There is no manifesto, no clear path to radicalization, and no evidence of allegiance to any group or ideology has been found.
And that means America has no foothold to understand why he did it.
