The FBI says it has unearthed a social media account that may be tied to would-be Donald Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks that shared “antisemitic” ideas and embraced “political violence.”
The account identified by investigators left about 700 comments online between 2019 and 2020, Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate testified before Congress Tuesday morning.
“Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes, to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature,” Abbate said.
“While the investigative team is still working to verify this account to determine if it did in fact belong to the shooter, we believe it important to share and note it today, particularly given the general absence of other information to date from social media and other sources of information that reflect o the shooter’s potential motive and mindset,” he acknowledged.
Investigators are still struggling to determine the motive for Crooks, 20, who scaled a factory roof in Butler, Pennsylvania, and opened fire on Trump during a rally on July 13.
Trump was nicked in the ear by a bullet and a hero firefighter was killed. Two other rally attendees were badly wounded.
Abbate was one of several law enforcement officials who took the stand Tuesday during the joint congressional hearing on the failures surrounding the attempt on Trump’s life.
Ronald Rowe, the acting Secret Service director, admitted that he was “ashamed’ of the lapses that allowed Crooks to gain access to the roof and set up his AR-15 rifle unchallenged.
Rowe, who was tapped to lead the agency last week following the resignation of former Director Kimberly Cheatle, added that the shooting was “failure on multiple levels.”
Information about the threat was “stuck or siloed in that state and local channel,” which prevented the Secret Service from responding to Crooks before he could open fire, Rower claimed.
The Secret Service personnel on the ground at the rally only knew that local authorities were dealing with “an issue” to Trump’s right – “nothing about a man on the roof, nothing about a man with a gun, none of that information ever made it over our net,” he said.
The post Trump shooter may have made ‘antisemitic and anti-immigrant’ social media posts that embraced ‘political violence,’ FBI says appeared first on New York Post.
