Carlson Says FBI Is Covering Up Details on Trump Assassination Attempt

Tucker Carlson has fully committed as a MAGA turncoat with shocking claims about an assassination attempt against President Donald Trump.

The former Fox News host teased on X Thursday that “the FBI lied” about Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old who attempted to kill Trump at a July 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and that he had proof to back it up.

“The FBI told us Thomas Crooks tried to kill Donald Trump last summer but somehow had no online footprint,” Carlson wrote on Thursday. “The FBI lied, and we can prove it because we have his posts. The question is why? Story tomorrow.”

Senior yearbook photo of Thomas Matthew Crooks. — Tucker Carlson is now feuding with the FBI over Thomas Crooks. Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters

The FBI’s newly launched “rapid response” account replied to deny the claim, saying, “This FBI has never said Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever.”

On Friday morning, Carlson followed up by posting a 34-minute video to X, where he bashed information shared by the FBI—under both Biden and Trump—regarding Trump’s attempted assassin as incomplete and misleading.

“That day, Thomas Crooks came within a quarter-inch of destroying this country,” Carlson said in the video. “And yet, a year and a half later, we still know almost nothing about him or why he did it.”

“And that’s because for some reason, the FBI, even the current FBI, doesn’t want us to know.”

Who is Thomas Crooks? pic.twitter.com/WwjvPGGRwS

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 14, 2025

Crooks, a registered Republican, shot at Trump from a nearby rooftop on July 13, 2024, and was killed by Secret Service agents. A rally attendee was killed, and Trump’s ear was grazed by a bullet shot by Crooks.

Carlson began the video by focusing on details surrounding Crooks, saying that the FBI had “hidden from the public what they know” about the shooter.

Citing an abundance of Crooks’ own public posts and other online activity, Carlson revealed that Crooks’ comments before 2020 incited violence, included racist and antisemitic language and praised Trump.

During COVID, Crooks’ stance shifted, becoming more critical of Trump and conservative media in posts online—suggesting he had become disillusioned and disappointed by right-wing political leaders.

This clearly refutes the FBI’s early media positioning that Crooks’ political motives were “unclear,” Carlson claimed.

Tucker Carlson — Former Fox News host Carlson alleges the FBI, under both Trump and Biden, distorted key facts surrounding attempted Trump assassin Thomas Crooks. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

He also slammed the bureau’s decision to cremate Crooks’ body only ten days after the assassination attempt, which landed on “the same day the House Homeland Security and Oversight Committees had begun their investigations into the shooting.”

“The fact the body was cremated made it impossible for investigators outside the FBI to verify the coroner and autopsy report,” he added.

Carlson went on to examine why Trump FBI appointees Kash Patel and Dan Bongino have failed to disclose any information in the investigation.

He showed clips of the agency’s MAGA figureheads declining to comment on the case’s details, citing a “trial” that doesn’t exist—as Crooks was killed at the scene.

Patel and Bongino have both supported the FBI and Secret Service’s response to the incident, with Patel saying they “followed proper protocol.”

“Why is the FBI telling us that they’ll release this information, quote, ‘after the trial,’ when there is no trial?” Carlson asked.

The conservative provocateur’s hammering of Trump’s FBI lackeys in their handling of a significant national security incident indicates his skepticism about the current investigation—a rare occurrence for the former MAGA mouthpiece.

“If there’s nothing there, if they tell you this is just a lone nut who gave no indication he might do this, then what is stopping the FBI from at least giving the facts to Congress?” Carlson concluded. “Because if there’s nothing there, these should be very easy questions to answer.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the FBI, the White House and Tucker Carlson for comment.

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