SAT . Miranda Devine: FBI, Secret Service butchered the Thomas Crooks case and invited conspiracies – we deserve the truth
We are all owed a better explanation from the FBI and Secret Service about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump 16 months ago at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
The president himself remains unsatisfied with the answers he’s been given about the circumstances leading to 20-year-old Thomas Crooks climbing on a rooftop with an AR-15-style rifle and firing eight times at Trump, narrowly missing his head but hitting his ear.
Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper, but not before he killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore, 50, and seriously wounded David Dutch, 58, and James Copenhaver, 75, who were sitting in the bleachers behind Trump.
There is something very wrong with the official story and that invites conspiracy theories.
More From Miranda Devine
The president demanded answers months ago. A man was murdered. What is going on?
Then-FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress after the July 13, 2024, attack that the bureau had found nothing in Crooks’ online history that pointed to a motive or political ideology.
A week later, Wray’s deputy Paul Abbate told Congress that comments posted on one of Crooks’ social media accounts “appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature.”
Thanks to an enterprising source who uncovered Crooks’ hidden digital footprint, we can see that Abbate misled Congress by omission, because he left out an entire section of Crooks’ online interactions from January to August 2020 when he did an ideological backflip and went from rabidly pro-Trump to rabidly anti-Trump and then went dark, never seeming to post again.
Among the 17 accounts uncovered by our source were ones on YouTube, Snapchat, Venmo, Zelle, GroupMe, Discord, Google Play, Quizlet, Chess.com and Quora.
The online interactions from when Crooks was ages 15 to 17 give us a better understanding of his evolution into an assassin, and invite more questions about what — or who — reversed his ideology.
“The danger Crooks posed was visible for years in public online spaces,” says the source. “His radicalization, violent rhetoric and obsession with political violence were all documented under his real name. The threat wasn’t hidden.”
The official narrative claimed he acted alone and without a clear motive, ideology or digital footprint.
Yet the source found reams of information that shows Crooks “was not simply some unknowable lone actor … He left a digital trail of violent threats, extremist ideology and admiration for mass violence. He spoke openly of political assassination, posted under his real name and was even flagged by other users who mentioned law enforcement in their replies. Despite this, his account remained active for more than five years — and was only removed the day after the shooting.
“None of this online activity was referenced in the final congressional report released in December 2024, making this even more troubling,” the source said.
Starting with Crooks’ phone number, the source used tools available to private investigators and web archives to uncover the assassin’s very visible online persona.
Crooks’ most prolific activity was on YouTube, with 737 public comments. The account “Tomcrooks2178” (visible to other users as Tom Crooks) was created on Jan. 14, 2019, and suspended on July 14, 2024, the day after the Butler attack, for violating YouTube’s policy on violent criminal organizations.
Political 180
Crooks’ trajectory from pro- to anti-Trump is evident. He referred to Trump as “the literal definition of Patriotism” in a comment at 1:17 a.m. July 20, 2019.
He also issued several targeted threats against the Democratic congressional representatives in “the Squad.”
“I hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman who don’t deserve anything this country [sic] has given them,” he wrote at 8:18 a.m. July 20, 2019.
“MURDER THE DEMOCRATS,” he wrote in all caps on Dec. 12, 2019.
But in early 2020, Crooks’ online behavior flipped 180 degrees and he became very critical of Trump, Fox News and Republican complaints about mail-in voting.
The first time he criticized Trump was on Jan. 23, 2020, when he commented on a video of law professor Jonathan Turley talking about Trump’s first impeachment.
“Keep in mind the only reason we may know about any of this is because of Trump’s stupidity,” Crooks wrote.
He started describing Trump supporters as a cult: “How can you people call others sheep, but you are do [too] brainwashed to realize how dumb you are,” he wrote on Feb. 26, 2020. “I mean literally you guys sound like a cult at times.”
The same day he described Trump as “racist.”
By April 2020, Crooks was constantly criticizing Trump’s pandemic response, saying he was “too slow and everything he’s doing now should have been done.”
Through the summer of 2020, Crooks’ online rhetoric became increasingly radical and violent.
On Aug. 5, 2020, Crooks wrote: “IMO the only way to fight the gov is with terrorism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building and set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to assassinate them.
“Any sort of head-to-head fight is suicide and even ambush/surprise attacks likely aren’t going to end well. A large portion of the war will also be propaganda/information wars — both sides will want people to join them, and a big deciding factor in wars is often which side has more popular support for them,” he wrote.
Among the 17 accounts uncovered by our source, only one, on PayPal, was operated under an alias: “Rod Swanson.”
Rod Swanson is a former senior FBI agent who was the chief of investigations for the state of Nevada during the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.
He also previously served on FBI Director Robert Mueller’s protective detail and as a firearms instructor in Pennsylvania.
Contacted by phone over the weekend, Swanson said he was surprised his name was connected to Crooks.
“I don’t know anything about that kid or his family,” he said. “I don’t even use PayPal. I don’t even know how to set up a PayPal account.”
He said he retired from the FBI in Vegas in 2016 and went to work for the Nevada attorney general from September 2015 to March 2020. He now works in the oil and gas business in Houston.
Furry fetish?
When told of Crooks’ online threats, he said there was no way the FBI would not be aware of the teenager.
“No matter how ridiculous the allegation, no matter if it’s COVID or not, somebody is going to knock on somebody’s door,” Swanson said. “If they investigated that kid there’s a record of it and there’s an assessment that some leader made that this was not a threat or it rose to a level and they did something else.”
He also said that “if the FBI had that information [about his name on the PayPal account], I can’t even imagine they would not have reached out to me right away.”
Attempted Trump assassin Thomas Crooks seen in disturbing clips inside bedroom
0 seconds of 59 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcutsMiranda Devine: FBI, Secret Service butchered the Thomas Crooks case and invited conspiracies – we deserve the truth
