Political commentator Tucker Carlson said he thinks certain members of the Trump administration are covering up crucial facts about the 20-year-old shooter who nearly killed the president last summer.
Thomas Crooks tried to assassinate now-President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. A bullet clipped Trump’s ear, just missing his head.
FILE – Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter, was killed, while two other men, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, were hurt.
Now, Carlson is saying something just doesn’t add up. He is questioning why the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said Crooks “had no online footprint” because he claims Crook left a “detailed digital trail of violent threats, including calls for assassination and political violence.”
The FBI lied, and we can prove it because we have his posts. The question is why?” Carlson wrote on X.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,” he later added during the latest episode of his podcast, “The Tucker Carlson Show.”That’s because, for some reason, the FBI, even the current FBI, doesn’t want us to know,” he said.
Carlson went on to criticize current FBI Director Kash Patel, as well as his predecessor, Christopher Wray, and Dan Bongino, who is the FBI’s deputy director. He claimed they are all hiding important information about Crooks, as well as security failures.
Patel clapped back on X without mentioning Carlson. He shared what he described as Crooks’ case overview, noting that more than 480 FBI staffers were involved in the investigation.
Employees 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,” Patel wrote.
Patel added that during the investigation, the FBI identified and examined at least 20 online accounts, as well as data extracted from more a dozen electronic devices, and the examination of several financial accounts.
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 said.
The FBI’s “Rapid Response” X account previously shared Carlson’s post and refuted his portrayal of the bureau’s findings.
This FBI has never said Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever,” according to the post.
But Carlson told a different story, as he said he obtained access to Crooks’ Google Drive account, where he allegedly uncovered several comments Crooks wrote on YouTube between 2019 and 2020.
The comments, said Carlson, are an indication Trump’s would-be assassin “was not some secretive lone wolf who never warned anyone that he was planning violence.”
