While Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle frustrated lawmakers Monday with sparse details about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the FBI has disclosed to Congress that the shooter used three encrypted communications apps ostensibly tied to Germany, Brussels and New Zealand and also possessed an arrest photo of an earlier Michigan school shooter, Just the News has confirmed.
In multiple briefings, FBI leaders told lawmakers that the 20-year-old would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks’ primary cell phone has become an important focal point of the probe, including some 14,000 images that were found on it, according to multiple sources familiar with the briefings. The FBI has not issued an update on their findings to the public since July 14.
That phone included an arrest photo and other information related to Ethan Crumbley, who was convicted in the deadly 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan, as well as information about Crumbley’s parents, the sources said, speaking only on condition of anonymity.
The phone also included stock images of firearms and guns, articles regarding U.S. government figures as well as a screenshot of online live coverage of July 13 rally saved at 6:01pm, about 10 minutes before Crooks began shooting from a rooftop near the Butler, Pa., venue where Trump was speaking.
One of the most tantalizing pieces of evidence from the phone, according to the sources, was three foreign encrypted platforms used by Crooks that were apparently based in Germany, New Zealand, and Belgium. The encryption on the apps “poses a significant challenge,” according to one source.
The FBI’s closed-door briefings also provided a far more detailed timeline about the events leading up to the shooting than Cheatle offered the House Oversight Committee, including that the Secret Service first conducted a site survey at the Butler event venue on July 8 that included the AGR industrial building that Crooks eventually used as a shooter’s nest, the sources said,
That survey was five days before the event, and resulted in a security plan that relied on three concentric rings of security around the podium, according to the sources.
Crooks visited the Butler Farms venue twice before the shooting, once on July 7 and again at 10:30 a.m. the morning of the shooting. He returned to retrieve a gun and then bought some ammunition before returning to the venue, the sources said,
The FBI also told lawmakers that the Secret Service was first notified at 5:51 p.m. ET on July 13 by the Pennsylvania State Police about a “suspicious person” at the speaking venue, and that information was relayed just a minute later to the Secret Service counter sniper team and response agents on the ground.
That means the Service had at least 9 minutes warning before Trump began speaking and 20 minutes before Crooks began shooting, the sources told Just The News.
One minute before the first shots were fired, the Secret Service sniper was alerted that there was a local police incident at the 3 p.m. position to where Trump was speaking. One of Trump’s detail agents began inquiring what was going on just before the first shot was fired, the sources said.
The FBI said evidence that its agents recovered from Crooks’ body or nearby after a counter-sniper killed him included the AR-15 rifle he used, a remote transmitter, a receipt from Home Depot, and his primary cell phone. The bureau told lawmakers that evidence seized from his vehicle in the parking lot at the Butler venue included:
- Two explosive devices that were to function remotely
- A Drone
- A tactical vest with plates in the front and back
- Four magazines full of same ammo used in attack
Evidence seized from his residence included:
- 14 additional weapons
- One explosive device
- A secondary cell phone
- A Laptop and hard drive
- 3 USB devices
Agents said the most startling finding thus far has been the complete absence of evidence revealing any political or ideological motive for Crooks' shooting, the sources said, recounting what the FBI told Congress.
On his laptop, Crooks visited websites about building explosive devices and left a message in an online gaming platform with his profile picture that read: “July 13 will be my premiere.”
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