New information was released about Thomas Crooks this week following the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the attempt against Trump’s life at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate also appeared before the Committee on Tuesday.
During the hearing, Rowe and Abbate were grilled by a number of different senators as they sought to find more information about the attempt to assassinate the former president.
At one point during the hearing, Abbate revealed that law enforcement officials discovered a social media account that they believe may be connected to Crooks. The account reportedly shared “antisemitic” topics and thoughts.
“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 told Senators during the hearing. “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 on the shooter’s potential motive and mindset.”
Acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr.’s glasses are fogged as he testifies before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security and Government Affairs committees in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on July 30, 2024, in Washington, D.C. On July 30, 2024, Rowe revealed new information about Thomas Crooks, the individual who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Abbate also revealed that a local law enforcement officer noticed Crooks with a firearm on the roof where the gun was shot.
“At approximately 6:11 p.m., a local police officer was lifted to the roof by another officer, saw the shooter and radioed that he was armed with ‘a long gun.’ Within approximately the next 30 seconds, the shots were fired,” he said.
However, Rowe explained that members of the Secret Service were not alerted to the individual with a gun, saying, “No information regarding a weapon on the roof was ever passed to our personnel.”
When asked how Crooks was able to get onto the roof with a rifle, Abbate explained that while officials have yet to find “definitive evidence” he noted that “based on everything that’s been collected thus far, photos, video, eyewitness accounts, we do believe he likely had it in the backpack, broken down into the backpack.”
On July 13, Crooks, 20, was identified as the individual who shot at the former president at a campaign rally over the weekend while he was on stage, injuring his ear in an assassination attempt. Crooks was later killed by the Secret Service while one rally attendee also died and two others were in critical condition.
Newsweek previously reached out to the Secret Service via email for comment on Rowe’s testimony.
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