New FBI Files Reveal Chilling Details About Wannabe Trump Assassin

The man who nearly assassinated President Donald Trump during a 2024 campaign rally in Pennsylvania used the name of a former Republican senator when making online purchases for the weapon used in the attack. 

Thomas Crooks ordered gun parts from online websites using the name of the late Kansas Senator Bob Dole, according to FBI records reviewed by the New York Post. Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper on July 13, 2024, after he opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, grazing the president in the ear and killing one of his supporters. 

The FBI concluded last year that Crooks acted alone and had no foreign or domestic assistance.

Crooks, 20, still lived at home at the time of his attack on the president. Crooks’ body was cremated less than two weeks after the attack, drawing objections from lawmakers. That cremation was paid for by an “anonymous donor,” according to the FBI files. 

Interviews conducted with Matthew Crooks, the father of the would-be assassin, reveal new details about the young man who came within inches of murdering Trump. 

In the interview, Matthew told investigators that his son was not very political and did not express many emotions. Matthew said that Thomas started picking up target shooting in high school, according to the files viewed by the Post. 

Matthew told the FBI that he “never really had a father/son bond” and that Thomas was always quiet and kept to himself. He said this persona became “more noticeable over the years” and that he “never showed interest in girls.”

“When Thomas was born, he did not scream and he was always quiet from that point on,” he told interviewers. 

Crooks did maintain an interest in guns and started going to the range. Matthew described his son as a “terrible” shot and said that he initially “could not hit paper” targets. As he improved, he started “going out so far” and told his father “he wanted to see how far he could shoot with rudimentary sights.”

At one point, Crooks created a homemade handgun “using carbon fiber plastic, a dryer, and a toaster oven.” 

Six days before the shooting, Matthew said he saw his son in their garage cleaning his gun while waving his “arms going up and down … frantically talking and not making any sense.” The day of the shooting, Matthew said he thought his son was going to the range and gave him his rifle. 

The packages Crooks ordered under the fake name included “parts, tools, and items to increase the capacity of his rifle,” Matthew told the FBI.

Crooks used the fake name as he was concerned about online hacking. Crooks also directed his parents to use VPNs for online security and recommended several he claimed were “less likely to be compromised by outside actors.” 

While Crooks was a registered Republican, his most recent political donation went to a leftist group called Progressive Turnout Project in 2021. 

“Thomas called himself a Republican. Thomas did not like the welfare state and was against the ‘woke’ ideology but never really espoused the Republican ideology,” said Matthew, who was unaware of the donation. 

Matthew added that his son “did not believe the 2020 presidential election was rigged” and disliked most politicians. 

The FBI said in November 2025 that Crooks did not leave behind a manifesto of any kind and that he acted alone. 

“We fully briefed the president, as a victim of this case, at the White House, providing him with all of the details of our investigation, and the president was satisfied with the results and where we left it,” FBI Director Kash Patel said. 

There are still major questions about the incident, including how the Secret Service failed to secure the scene and let Crooks take an uncontested shot at Trump from just 150 yards away.

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