Five weeks since the first attempted assassination of a current or former president in over 40 years, the public still has precious few answers about 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Since his identity became known, the FBI and members of Congress have been trying to piece together a motive, scrutinizing every aspect of his life both online and off.
Even in his hometown of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, a quiet suburb of Pittsburgh, neighbors say the Crooks family was always an enigma — and continues to be.
“Everybody around here knows each other, but no one knows them,” said Karen, 77, who lives on the same street as the Crookses and asked that her last name not be used.
“You can ask anybody on this street, they barely know these people. I didn’t even know their names.”
When federal authorities raided his family’s modest home in the wake of the shooting, agents seized hardware including his laptop, two cellphones and multiple hard drives and flash drives.
The large amount of data recovered (around 4.5 terabytes) is a potential technological treasure trove for forensics teams, but authorities said getting definitive answers has been slow going due to the sheer volume of information to sift through.
However, it’s clear from congressional hearings — and the details that have emerged from FBI briefings with lawmakers — that investigators still have no satisfying answers for why Crooks targeted Trump.
The glacial pace of new information coming to light has been frustrating for Crooks’ neighbors, who are still waiting for answers after the shocking discovery that they were living next to a killer who plotted to murder a leading candidate for president.
“I would love to know what really happened and what Thomas’ motivation was,” neighbor Kelly Little, 39, told The Post.
“Domestic terrorism is very real. We deserve to know what happened, but I don’t know if we’re ever going to get a straight answer.”
Little said their calm suburban street has grown quiet again after being thrust into the center of a media and police firestorm last month.
“It’s been weeks since police were here. There’s nothing happening, no police activity,” she said, noting that although local cops drive by occasionally, there are no officers stationed there long-term.
Crooks’ parents have been keeping to themselves since the shooting, which neighbors said was pretty much par for the course even before the events at the Trump rally in Butler.
Karen said she really wants to know how Crooks’ parents were oblivious to his plans.
“What went on in that house? Why didn’t they know their son was going through whatever he was going through or that their son thought the way he thought?” she asked.
Another neighbor on the Crookses’ block, who declined to be identified, agreed that although the neighborhood had returned mostly to normal, the lack of real answers remains frustrating.
Start and end your day informed with our newsletters
Morning Report and Evening Update: Your source for today’s top stories
Thanks for signing up!
“Law enforcement needs to do and find out what went wrong,” she said.
“I absolutely know nothing about what went on other than what’s already been reported, which is not a lot.”
She agreed it was bizarre that more was not known about Crooks at this point, which has led her to believe there’s more to the story than we already know.
“I don’t think he acted alone, that would be my best guess,” she said.
That claim contradicts statements from the FBI and Secret Service that they’ve found no accomplices.
However, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) last week said he’s not satisfied with federal investigators’ assertions.
“How did he learn to build those IEDs? How did he learn to install remote detonators? How did he conduct those searches and not get popped?” Waltz, who sits on a House task force charged with investigating the July 13 attempt on Trump’s life, told The Post.
“I still have a lot of questions.”
Waltz isn’t the only GOP member of Congress venting frustrations about the seemingly stalled pace of the investigation.
“It’s been more than a month since former President Trump’s near-assassination, yet the FBI has still not offered Congress or the public any real insights into Crooks’ motivation,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told The Post.
“The FBI ought to stop dragging its feet and provide a serious update on their investigation. Every day the FBI, as well as the Secret Service, keep the American people in the dark is another day wasted.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) accused the FBI and Secret Service of stonewalling a Senate probe of the assassination attempt against Trump.
Johnson, who is on a bipartisan Senate investigation into the attempt on Trump’s life, argued that the bureau and Secret Service have been giving them redacted documents often on the day of key interviews, complicating the probe.
“All I can really tell you is the Secret Service, FBI are basically dragging their feet. They’re stonewalling us,” Johnson said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“We’re not getting squat, from my standpoint, from the Secret Service or the FBI. We have requested all their 302s, their transcriptions of their interviews with hundreds of individuals. They’re not turning those over to us as well.”
Crooks’ internet presence, or lack thereof, is another layer of the mystery in a world where more than four-fifths of young adults use at least one social media platform.
Despite the collective scrutiny of every law enforcement agency and investigative journalist in the country, no profiles definitively linked to Crooks have been unearthed.
Investigators have homed in on several accounts believed to be linked to Crooks on foreign-based encrypted messaging services and social media platforms, but the FBI has yet to detail its findings so far.
Even Crooks’ political leanings remain inscrutable, with investigators struggling to uncover anything more than lukewarm indications of support for either political party.
There’s been no manifesto, no discernible path to radicalization, and no evidence uncovered to support allegiance to any group or ideology.
And that means America has no toehold bringing us closer to understanding why he did what he did.
