FBI Director Kash Patel dismisses Tucker Carlson’s claims about would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks

FBI Director Kash Patel shared details Friday about the bureau’s investigation into Thomas Crooks, after Tucker Carlson alleged President Trump’s would-be assassin left digital warning signs that he was planning an attack. 

The former Fox News host has accused the FBI of lying about Crooks’ “online footprint” and revealed disturbing social media comments Friday purportedly made by the 20-year-old in the years leading up to the July 13, 2024, shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pa. – suggesting he may not have been a “lone wolf.” 

“The investigation, conducted by over 480 FBI employees, revealed Crooks had limited online and in person interactions, planned and conducted the attack alone, and did not leak or share his intent to engage in the attack with anyone,” Patel wrote on X, providing an overview of the case. 

Kash Patel maintains Crooks acted alone to plot and carry out the assassination attempt against Trump. AP

As part of the investigation, the FBI director said the bureau “conducted over 1,000 interviews, addressed over 2,000 public tips, analyzed data extracted from 13 seized digital devices, reviewed nearly 500,000 digital files, collected, processed, and synchronized hundreds of hours of video footage, analyzed financial activity from 10 different accounts, and examined data associated with 25 social media or online forum accounts.”

The FBI’s new “rapid response” X account had previously dismissed Carlson’s characterization of the bureau’s findings.  

“This FBI has never said Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever,” read a post from the account on Thursday. 

Carlson, host of “The Tucker Carlson Show,” claimed to have obtained access to Crooks’ Google Drive account and a trove of violent comments the gunman left on YouTube between 2019 and 2020. 

The conservative commenter said Crooks left a “detailed digital trail of violent threats, including calls for assassination and political violence.” 

“Thomas Crooks came within a quarter inch of destroying this country, and yet, a year and a half later, we still know almost nothing about him or why he did it. That’s because, for some reason, the FBI, even the current FBI, doesn’t want us to know,” Carlson argued.

Carlson has accused the FBI of lying about the Crooks case and witholding evidence from the public. Aristide Economopoulos

The comments, including Crooks’ back-and-forth with another unidentified YouTube user, lead Carlson to believe Trump’s would-be assassin “was not some secretive lone wolf who never warned anyone that he was planning violence.”

Carlson noted that Crooks’ was initially pro-Trump, and his threats were aimed at prominent Democrats, before he “radically” turned against the president amid the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.  

“It was an amazing transformation,” Carlson said. 

Crooks left numerous deranged YouTube comments calling for political violence in the years before the assassination attempt, according to Carlson. AP

The FBI has not released a motive for Crooks’ attempt to assassinate President Trump. AP

The FBI has not released a motive for why Crooks’ opened fire at the Butler Farm Show Fairgrounds last year. 

The shooting left Trump wounded, two rally-goers severely injured and fire chief Corey Comperatore dead. 

Crooks, who took aim at the president from an unsecured rooftop less than 200 yards from the stage, was shot dead by a Secret Service counter-sniper just moments after opening fire.