Judicial Watch obtained heavily redacted documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showing that law enforcement broadcast radio warnings about an “unknown male acting suspiciously” prior to the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The FBI was forced to release the first records after President Donald Trump’s assassination attempt on July 13, 2024, following Judicial Watch’s lawsuit against the bureau. A year and a half after the shooting, very little is known about the assassination attempt, the failures leading up to it, and the shooter himself.
‘It shouldn’t have taken years and a federal lawsuit to get this basic FBI material.’
In the lawsuit, Judicial Watch asked for all records and communications related to Trump’s would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, after the FBI failed to comply with a July 2024 FOIA request.
As a result, the FBI was forced to release 37 heavily redacted pages revealing the extent to which law enforcement was aware of “suspicious” activity leading up to the deadly shooting.
RELATED: Damning social media footprint suggests Thomas Crooks was another ‘they/them’ radical
Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
One investigative report found that law enforcement flagged a suspicious male wearing a gray T-shirt with “Demolition Ranch” written on the front like the one Crooks was wearing. The same report found an unknown male scouting out a law enforcement sniper position, leading several officials to communicate about his activity.
Another report released portions of an interview done on July 16 where a member of the Saxonburg Police Department noted that sniper teams called out and sent photos of a “suspicious person” with a range finder. The same officer later said that a call came out over the radio of a “long gun on the roof” moments before shots rang out.
Several similar interviews the FBI was forced to release corroborated these details, including the apparent sightings of Crooks and his suspicious activity prior to the assassination attempt.
RELATED: The CHILLING online trail of Trump’s would-be assassin
Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
“These documents raise troubling new questions about Secret Service failures to protect President Trump,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement obtained by Blaze News. “And it shouldn’t have taken years and a federal lawsuit to get this basic FBI material about the near assassination of President Trump.”
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