America deserves answers: Investigate Thomas Crooks and the FBI’s mishandled first probe

Why did the FBI either fail to track down major information about would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks — or fail to make it public?

Indeed, shouldn’t the Bureau have been aware of Crooks’ alarming and visible social media profile long before he opened fire on President Donald Trump in Butler, Pa., last year?

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The information Miranda Devine shared in Monday’s Post directly contradicts public claims by then-FBI Director Chris Wray that Crooks was a mystery man with a thin or nonexistent online presence.

The methods Devine’s source used — starting with Crooks’ phone number to track down his accounts on YouTube, Snapchat, Venmo, Zelle, GroupMe, Discord, Google Play, Quizlet, Chess.com and Quora — can’t be alien to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

How could the feds miss the YouTube account “Tomcrooks2178” (which showed to other users as Tom Crooks), active from Jan. 14, 2019, to its suspension on July 14, 2024, the day after Butler?

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Federal officials supposedly monitor social media for signs of danger; did posts like the all-caps “MURDER THE DEMOCRATS” of Dec. 12, 2019, really set off no alarms?

In fact, he got more spooky after he turned to the left, writing in August 2020, “the only way to fight the gov is with terrorism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building and set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to assassinate them.”

None of this speech is grounds for arrest — but it’s absolutely the kind of thing you expect to get someone onto the feds’ radar, and certainly stuff they should note after the author has come a fraction of an inch from succeeding in an assassination.

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Especially when, per Devine’s source, Crooks’ scarier posts were “even flagged by other users who mentioned law enforcement in their replies.”

A fresh investigation is now a must: Probe Crooks, his backtrail and possible co-conspirators, and of the FBI officials who one way or another dropped the ball — as well as of current FBI leaders, who also fell down.

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All the previous weirdness, from the Secret Service’s claim it posted no agents on the roof Crooks used because it was too steep to Wray’s bizarre testimony to Congress that Trump may not have even been shot, has launched a thousand conspiracy theories.

The FBI’s decline, dating back to at least Robert Mueller’s “reforms” after 9/11, is old news, but Team Trump was supposed to be turning things around; the nation needs to know why that work is plainly going far too slowly.