Investigators found a small drone in the car owned by the gunman who tried to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump — and believe it was used to survey the site of Mr. Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., at least once before the shooting, according to law enforcement officials.
Thomas Crooks, 20, visited the area near the fairgrounds used for the rally on July 7 — six days before the event — and appears to have made another trip the morning of the shooting, according to geolocation data found on one of his two cellphones, the officials said.
At some point last Saturday, Mr. Crooks seems to have flown the drone to gather footage for a layout of the Butler Farm Show grounds using a preprogrammed flight path, according to an official briefed on the situation who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about a continuing investigation.
The discovery of the drone was delayed when investigators found two rudimentary explosive devices in his Hyundai Sonata shortly after Mr. Crooks — a highly intelligent and technologically sophisticated community college graduate — was felled by a sniper after bloodying Mr. Trump’s ear, killing a man in the crowd and seriously injuring two other people.
Investigators also found several magazines for the rifle he used and a bulletproof vest in the vehicle.
Over the past several days, F.B.I. technicians analyzed the drone in its lab, along with two of Mr. Crooks’s phones and other electronic devices in hopes of determining his motive.
So far, they have found no evidence that he was motivated by any strong partisan political beliefs or an animus against Mr. Trump. Nor have they found evidence of co-conspirators or involvement by foreign governments.
Senior bureau officials told members of Congress on Wednesday that Mr. Crooks had searched for images of Mr. Trump and President Biden on his devices, and also researched dates of Trump campaign events, along with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month.
His use of the drone to provide an aerial view of the Butler site was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
On Friday, July 12, the day before the rally, Mr. Crooks spent much of the day at the gun range, his parents told investigators. On Saturday, he went to Home Depot at 9:30 a.m. to buy a ladder. He purchased 50 rounds of ammunition later in the afternoon and drove to the rally. Investigators do not believe he used a ladder to ascend to the roof of the warehouse he used as a perch — about 450 feet from Mr. Trump’s podium, just outside the official perimeter of the rally.
A video aired by a Pittsburgh-area TV station showed Mr. Crooks, hand in pocket, walking along the perimeter of the warehouse just before Mr. Trump took the stage.
The Secret Service did not seek to use drones to provide agents with aerial views of the rally, according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration. The security contingent responsible for protecting Mr. Trump did not request a waiver from the F.A.A. needed to conduct drone operations in restricted airspace, as is typically put into effect when a former president is appearing outdoors, an agency spokesman said.
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