FBI Investigates Assassination Attempt on Former US President Donald Trump
In a shocking turn of events, former US President Donald Trump has agreed to meet with the FBI for a "victim interview" regarding the recent assassination attempt on his life. The FBI has still not determined a motive for the attack, which occurred on July 13, and has identified the 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, as a "loner" with no known co-conspirators.
According to FBI special agent Kevin Rojek, the interview with Trump will be a standard procedure, aimed at gathering his perspective on what he observed during the attack. The FBI has already interviewed dozens of people who knew or interacted with Crooks, including family members, co-workers, former teachers, classmates, and others.
Rojek revealed that Crooks was highly intelligent, attended college, and maintained steady employment, but had a limited social circle, with his primary connections being within his immediate family. The FBI officials said Crooks’s parents had no advance knowledge of their son’s plot and that their claims were found to be credible at this stage.
The investigation has also revealed that Crooks searched online for details about the November 1963 assassination of US President John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald, as well as information on improvised explosive devices and the attempted assassination of the Slovakian prime minister earlier this year.
On the day of the shooting, Crooks was perched on the roof of a nearby building and opened fire on Trump with an AR-style assault rifle shortly after 6:00 pm. Trump was wounded in the ear, two rally attendees were seriously injured, and a 50-year-old Pennsylvania firefighter was shot dead.
The FBI identified Crooks as a "suspicious person" about an hour before the shooting and had been monitoring him through police dashcam video and eyewitness accounts. At approximately 6:08 pm, Crooks was observed traversing the roof of the building, and at 6:11 pm, a local police officer encountered him, leading to a confrontation that resulted in Crooks being neutralized.
US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned last week after acknowledging the agency’s failure to prevent the assassination attempt.
