The FBI has rejected conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s assertion that the agency “lied” about some of the facts surrounding President Donald Trump’s would-be shooter, Thomas Crooks, specifically about the nature of his online presence.
Carlson claimed the FBI had lied when it said that Crooks had “no online footprint,” promising on Thursday that he would reveal in his investigation posts Crooks had made online.
The FBI Rapid Response account on X insisted: “This FBI has never said Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever.”
Newsweek reached out to the FBI by email on Friday afternoon for comment.
Why It Matters
Information about Crooks, 20, and the near-assassination of Trump during the 2024 U.S. presidential election remains scarce well over a year after the attempt. Crooks was killed in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, after shooting at Trump eight times with an AR-15-style rifle from the rooftop of a nearby building.
Crooks killed one audience member and injured two others while only seeming to graze Trump’s ear. A member of the U.S. Secret Service Counter Sniper Team returned fire and killed Crooks just seconds later.
The attack revealed worrying security lapses and led to the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, and an independent panel investigating the assassination attempt said the agency needed “fundamental reform.”
What To Know
Carlson on Friday uploaded a video onto X at 8:00 a.m. ET, which included video footage that he claimed the FBI “has worked hard to make sure you haven’t seen,” purportedly from Crooks’ Google Drive. The first clip appeared to show Crooks dry-firing a gun in a room with paper targets taped to a wall in 2024.
The roughly 35-minute video is alleged to verify Crooks’ digital footprint, including YouTube comments and various accounts that may have belonged to the would-be assassin.
Carlson claimed in his video that the FBI has gone to lengths to hide the evidence of Crooks’ account and online activity. Carlson relied on a source that used Crooks’ phone number to find his Gmail account and two subsequent emails that may have belonged to Crooks, along with accounts on Snapchat, Venmo, Paypal, Zelle, Discord, Google Play, Quizlet, Chess.com, and Quora—the last of which had been deactivated.
Carlson alleged that these accounts painted a picture of a robust online presence, which he said went against a previous FBI comment that Crooks had little online presence.
Carlson said he had reached out to the FBI, which asked if he had verified the accounts—a response Carlson said had “confused” him since “the authenticity is self-evident.”
However, the FBI has seemingly drawn a distinction between the agency as it existed under President Joe Biden and under the second Trump administration: The account that replied to Carlson, FBI Rapid Response, was made in November 2025, with its first post on November 13.
The account has only 22,500 followers, which includes FBI Director Kash Patel and some prominent journalists, such as CBS News Senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs, indicating the account may be new, but it is authentic.
Some users posted a screenshot with a Community Note that appeared to try and correct the FBI account’s response and then had seemingly been removed, but the note—if it had been posted and removed—used a statement made by former FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate in July 2024, which would not actually contradict the statement made by the rapid response account that “this” FBI – ie. the FBI under Patel – had never made such statements.
What People Are Saying
Tucker Carlson on November 13 wrote on X: “The FBI told us Thomas Crooks tried to kill Donald Trump last summer but somehow had no online footprint. The FBI lied, and we can prove it because we have his posts. The question is why? Story tomorrow.”
The FBI Rapid Response account on November 14 replied to Carlson: “This FBI has never said Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever.”
