11 months ago
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(NewsNation) — The FBI told lawmakers that the bureau is inactive moving to find what motive Thomas Matthew Crooks had successful attempting to sprout and termination erstwhile President Donald Trump.
Former Secret Service cause Paul Eckloff believes the champion mode to recognize Crooks' motive is to look astatine the "history of shooters successful America."
"If you look backmost astatine a past of wide shooters successful nationalist spaces, 25% had a diagnosed intelligence illness," Eckloff said Thursday, during NewsNation's peculiar report connected the assassination attempt. "That's absorbing due to the fact that that's a precise debased number. In this case, it appears helium (Crooks) was diagnosed with a large depressive disorder, but you thin to look astatine changes successful behavior."
Eckloff said that successful the aforesaid mode that the FBI tin "forensically look astatine the tract and find wherever the errors were" ... "there are opportunities to intervene" successful cases involving wide shootings.
"We'll request to spell backmost and gully a timeline of his behaviors, and certainly, his net searches are portion of that. ... Him researching assassins is decidedly a sign. But arsenic we know, America's fascinated with assassins," Eckloff added.
According to the FBI, connected July 6, the time Crooks registered for the Butler rally, helium besides ran a Google hunt connected his machine asking however acold Lee Harvey Oswald was from President John F. Kennedy erstwhile Kennedy was assassinated successful Dallas successful 1963.
FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks during a proceeding of the Senate Intelligence Committee connected Capitol Hill successful March successful Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)That online search, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, provides penetration into Crooks’ mindset successful the days starring up to the assassination attempt. Wray besides testified the online searches began to absorption much connected Trump and the Butler rally.
Wray testified Crooks flew a drone astir 200 yards from the signifier wherever Trump was acceptable to talk much than 2 hours earlier the shooting took place.
Crooks, a 20-year-old nursing location worker who graduated from assemblage assemblage past spring, had searched online for accusation astir Trump and Biden and had photos of some men connected his phone, lawmakers told the Washington Post.
The paper besides reported that photos of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and a subordinate of the British royal household were besides connected Crooks’ phone. Wray testified that Crooks was utilizing an encrypted messaging app connected his phone.
A hunt of Crooks’ telephone by the FBI besides determined that helium had conducted online searches astir a shooting successful which a teenage gunman, Ethan Crumbley, killed 4 precocious schoolhouse students successful Michigan arsenic good arsenic accusation astir large depressive disorder, the rally successful Butler, and the Democratic National Convention.
NBC News reported different online searches tally by Crooks successful the months starring up to the rally included 1 connected explosive materials and chemic compounds arsenic good arsenic improvised explosive devices and the Department of Homeland Security.
The study indicated determination were much than 14,000 links and photos recovered connected Crooks’ phone, including 1 photograph of the rally that was taken earlier Trump took the stage.
NewsNation's Jeff Arnold contributed to this report.
