The man who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a July 13 campaign rally in Pennsylvania searched on Google about the assassination of John F. Kennedy days prior to the shooting.
The information was revealed by FBI Director Christopher Wray, who testified at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, July 24.
“Analysis of a laptop that the investigation ties to the shooter reveals that on July 6, he did a Google search for, quote, ‘How far away was Oswald from Kennedy,’” Wray testified, in a hearing aired by C-SPAN.
The shooter, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was killed by Secret Service agents after firing several shots toward Trump, who was speaking on stage, from a building outside the venue in Butler, Pa..
Trump, whose ear was bleeding in the aftermath of the shooting, was evacuated safely from the scene. One person in the audience was killed, while two others were seriously injured.
According to Wray’s testimony, Crooks registered to attend the rally on the same day he made the searc -
h about the Kennedy assassination.
Wray also testified that Crooks had a drone in his vehicle at the time of the shooting. About two hours before the shooting, Wray said, Crooks had flown the drone in the area of the venue.
The FBI director was asked then about explosive devices found in the shooter's vehicle and home.
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“The explosive devices did have the ability to detonate remotely,” Wray testified, though he added that the investigation currently indicates that had Crooks attempted to detonate them from the roof, he would have been unsuccessful based on the “on-off position of the receivers.”
“But that doesn’t mean the explosives weren’t dangerous,” Wray said.
Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022 in Bethel Park, Pa., about 50 miles from Butler.
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