Thomas Crooks used they/them pronouns, had obsession with political violence and ‘muscle mommies’: sources

Thomas Crooks used they/them pronouns and posted threats of political violence and violent art on his secret social media accounts before he attempted to assassinate President Trump, according to sources who shared the suspected messages with The Post.

The loner sniper — who grazed Trump in the ear, killed a beloved firefighter and critically wounded two other Trump supporters — also apparently had a “muscle mommy” fetish, and repeatedly searched for videos about female bodybuilders and muscular women.

The Post’s Miranda Devine reported on the newly unearthed online activity on Monday.

Crooks had two possible accounts on DeviantArt, a site that hosts fan art and has become notorious for its community of furries — people who identify as anthropomorphized animal characters and/or are sexually attracted to them.

One of the DeviantArt accounts linked to Crooks shared just one post, a repost of a towering, muscular female bodybuilder and a slight man in his underwear.

Trump’s attempted assassin Thomas Crooks had an obsession with violence and used they/them pronouns. Candace Owens / YouTube

Multiple searches for muscular women and female bodybuilders were found on Crooks’ supposed YouTube search history.

The profile for the DeviantArt also lists pronouns as They/Them — though it’s not clear whether Crooks identified as transgender.

A trawl of Crooks’ digital footprint, dating back almost a decade before he tried to kill Trump on July 13, 2024, at an election rally in Butler, Pa., shows an increasing obsession with violence and increasingly radical comments and artwork that seemingly arose during COVID, according to the sources.

The sources used publicly available research tools to link multiple email addresses to Crooks, and then found usernames associated with those emails on numerous sites, including YouTube, Snapchat, PayPal, Discord, Chess.com, Quora, and DeviantArt.

The FBI has not confirmed the details of Crooks’ possible social media accounts, and did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Crooks was killed after trying to shoot Trump dead during a Butler, Pa. rally. James Copenhaver

His early online presence — when he would have been in high school — was almost exclusively pro-Trump, while he also made a number of violently antisemitic comments and racist remarks about Hispanic immigrants.

“I always believed being patriotic was lining up a bunch of socialist Jews (like the ones that booed Trump) and blasting their useless brains out with an AR,” a YouTube account featuring Crooks’ full name posted in the comments under a clip of President Trump being booed during the 2019 World Series in Washington, DC, according to sources.

“Everyone of the trump hating democrats deserve to have their heads chopped of and put on steaks for the world to see what happens when you f–k with America [sic],” he said in one comment under an MSNBC clip from July 2019.

He appeared to have an obsession with muscular women with scrawny men. Obtained by the NY Post

He also described in detail how he would use an assault rifle against a crowd of political opponents, frequently quoting the line, “The only true political power comes from the barrel of a gun,” from Chinese communist dictator Mao Zedong.

And Crooks made violent threats against Democratic members of “The Squad,” the sources said.

“I hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman who dont deserve anything this countru has given them [sic],” he wrote in a July 20, 2019 post.

But in 2020, amid the COVID pandemic, he appeared to make a 180-degree turn on his views on Trump.

“I’m pretty sure people are just racist and Trump is one of them, there does not need to be a deep state for that,” he said in a YouTube comment dated Feb. 26, 2020, according to sources.

Another artwork appeared to feature a shooting against a backdrop of the trans flag colors. Obtained by the NY Post

Crooks also appeared to have an obsession with the coronavirus, and his disillusionment with Trump appeared to stem from what he saw as the Republican president’s resistance to enacting social distancing mandates and bans on public gatherings.

He claimed Trump was “too slow and everything he’s doing now should have been done,” adding that “there wasn’t any reasonable defense for Trump,” in YouTube comments on successive days in April 2020.

A DeviantArt account believed to be Crooks’ featured they/them pronouns. Obtained by the NY Post

It’s around this time that he started posting violent artworks, according to sources.

One piece titled “How he lost his eye,” dated Jun. 10, 2023, and shared on DeviantArt, shows a figure clad in black executing another figure, in front of a blue and pink backdrop — matching the colors of the trans pride flag.

Another artwork from the following month, titled “Killing pedos,” shows a figure holding a rifle after fatally shooting two individuals, one of whom is wearing blue and pink clothes.

A third artwork from June 2023 shows a purple-headed figure with his head cracked open after being bashed with a metal pipe.

Many of his artworks and comments revealed an obsession with violence and gore. Obtained by the NY Post

Thomas Crooks’ supposed YouTube and Google searches also reveal a pattern of violence and an obsession with guns and famous assassinations.

Between 2019 and 2020, he made searches for Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby, the Oklahoma bombing, and the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, among other attacks.

He also searched how to fire an AR-15 “as fast as possible,” as well as how to make a fertilizer bomb and a Molotov cocktail.

Crooks also shared videos and pictures of himself with firearms.

Crooks repeatedly looked for information related to body armor, high-velocity ammo, and riot control.

In August 2020, he explicitly discussed on YouTube how to fight a government using “terrorism style tactics,” as his views became increasingly nihilistic.

“IMO the only way to fight the gov is with terrorism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building and set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to assassinate them,” he wrote, according to sources.

He also noted that such an act would likely result in that person’s death.

“Any sort of head-to-head fight is suicide, and even ambush/surprise attacks likely aren’t going to end well,” he said in a YouTube comment.