WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump has agreed to be questioned by the FBI as part of an investigation into his assassination attempt in Pennsylvania earlier this month, a special agent said Monday, revealing how the gunman researched mass shootings and explosive devices before the shooting.
The planned interview with the 2024 Republican presidential candidate is part of the FBI’s standard protocol for speaking to victims during its criminal investigations. The FBI said Friday that Trump was struck in the ear by a bullet or bullet fragment during the July 13 assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“We want to get his perspective on what he observed,” said Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office. “This is a standard interview with a victim, just like we would do with any other crime victim, in any other circumstance.”
Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired Monday night that he expected the FBI interview to take place Thursday.
Through more than 450 interviews, the FBI was able to build a profile of the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, as a “highly intelligent” but reclusive 20-year-old whose primary social circle was his family and who had few friends and acquaintances throughout his life, Rojek said. Even on the online gaming platforms Crooks frequented, his interactions with peers appeared to have been minimal, the FBI said.
His parents have been “extremely cooperative” with the investigation, Rojek said. They said they had no advance knowledge of the shooting.
The FBI has not found a motive for why it chose to target Trump, but investigators believe the shooting was the result of extensive planning, including the purchase under an alias in recent months of precursor chemicals that investigators believe were used to create the explosive devices found in his car and home, and the deployment of a drone about 200 yards (180 meters) from the rally site in the hours before the event.
The day before the shooting, according to the FBI, Crooks went to a local shooting range and practiced with the weapon that would be used in the attack.
After the shooting, authorities found two explosive devices in Crooks’ car and a third in his bedroom. The devices recovered from the car, consisting of ammunition boxes filled with explosive material along with wires, receivers and igniters, were capable of detonation but did not detonate because the receivers were in the “off” position, Rojek said. It’s unclear what damage they might have caused.
The FBI said Crooks had shown an interest in high-profile public figures before the shooting, searching online for information about individuals such as Trump and President Joe Biden. In addition, Rojek said, Crooks sought information about mass shootings, improvised explosive devices, power plants and the attempted assassination in May of populist Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress last week that on July 6, the day Crooks registered to attend the Trump rally, he Googled, “How far was Oswald from Kennedy?” That’s a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the gunman who killed President John F. Kennedy from a sniper’s perch in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
Meanwhile, new details have emerged about law enforcement security lapses and failed communications leading up to the shooting.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, released text messages from members of the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit that showed how local officers communicated with each other about a suspicious man who turned out to be Crooks who was lurking more than an hour before the shooting.
A text posted just before 4:30 p.m. describes a man “sitting directly to the right on a picnic table about 50 meters from the exit.”
In another text at 5:38 p.m., an officer tells the other snipers: “A kid learning how to be in a building. I think it’s AGR. I saw him with a rangefinder looking toward the stage. FYI. If you want to warn the SS snipers to watch out. I lost sight of him.” Photos of Crooks circulated among the group.
AGR is a reference to a complex of buildings that make up AGR International Inc., a supplier of automation equipment to the glass and plastic packaging industry. Crooks climbed onto the roof of one of the buildings in the complex and allegedly fired eight shots at the rally scene from an AR-style rifle that had been legally purchased by his father years earlier.
Trump said he was “shot through the top of his right ear” and appeared days later with a bandage over his ear. One rallygoer, Corey Comperatore, was killed and two others were wounded. Crooks was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.
In an interview with ABC News, a Beaver County officer who sounded the alarm said that after sending a text message alerting others to Crooks’ presence, “I assumed someone would come talk to this individual or find out what was going on.”
Another officer told ABC News that the group was supposed to have a face-to-face briefing with Secret Service countersnipers, but that never happened.
An email to the Secret Service seeking comment did not immediately receive a response Monday.
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