Trump’s would-be assassin Thomas Crooks wrote chilling online post foreshadowing rally shooting: report
Would-be Donald Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks wrote a chilling online message that hinted at sinister plans for the day he shot up the former president’s Butler, Pa., rally over the weekend.
“July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds,” the 20-year-old gunman allegedly wrote on Steam, a popular online platform where gamers communicate, Fox News reported.
The foreshadowing was revealed to US senators during a briefing by top law enforcement officials Wednesday.
Crooks, 20, also had images of the Republican presidential nominee as well as President Biden on his cellphone, and searched the dates of the Democratic National Convention and Trump’s Pennsylvania rally — where he shot at the 45th president from a nearby rooftop, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Investigators are mining the shooter’s phones and computer in search of answers to the assassination attempt — but have not yet identified a motive.
Their probe into the gunman’s search history did not reveal which side of the political spectrum Crooks, a registered Republican, was on, according to ABC News, which first reported the discovery.
Crooks, who was shot dead seconds after firing at the former president, had two cellphones — a primary device recovered near his body and a secondary one at his home that had just 27 contacts, according to Fox.
Details of his search history were released as news broke that 20 minutes passed between the time that Secret Service snipers first spotted Crooks perched on a roof with a rifle and the time he began firing at the former president.
The gunfire killed a 50-year-old married dad of two girls in attendance and injured two other rally-goers.
Multiple law enforcement sources and legislators briefed on the investigation told ABC that snipers saw Crooks on the roof outside the rally’s security zone at 5:52 p.m. before the shooting began at 6:12 p.m.
The shocking 20-minute time gap was confirmed by The Post’s sources, who added that at one point, Crooks was reportedly peering through his rangefinder at the snipers who were looking back at him.
In fact, Crooks was identified as a person of interest over an hour before the shooting took place, sources have told The Post.
After he fired his first shot, the snipers took him out within just 26 seconds.
