Trump shooter used ‘mechanical device’ to climb onto roof, may have had collapsible stock: FBI

Thomas Crooks, the gunman who killed one person and wounded Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on July 13, may have had a collapsible weapon in his possession, FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

Wray stressed to the House Judiciary Committee that it was not a definitive conclusion, as FBI agents and other law enforcement officials continue to investigate the shocking incident. But it could explain one of the questions that remains to be answered: specifically, how Crooks was seen by some on the ground before the shooting in Butler, Pa., but not seen in possession of a weapon until he climbed onto a nearby roof.

“The weapon had a collapsible stock, which could explain why it was less easy to observe,” he said.

Wray said Trump came into the shooter’s mind on July 6 in particular, when he also searched the Internet for the distance between Lee Harvey Oswald and President John F. Kennedy in the 1963 assassination in Dallas.

On Wednesday, he said the initial analysis of a laptop owned by Crooks also implicated “foreign public figures,” without naming specific individuals.

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The FBI has said it is investigating the shooting, which left one rallygoer dead and two others seriously wounded, as an act of domestic terrorism and attempted murder. Trump’s campaign said the presumptive GOP nominee was doing “fine” after the shooting, with Trump saying the upper part of his right ear was pierced.

The outcry over the shooting led to bipartisan calls on Tuesday for the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.

‘Crude’ explosives found

Wray said the shooter had purchased a five-foot ladder, but it was not found at the shooting scene or in the shooter’s vehicle, saying he would not specify its location.

Officials believe Crooks used unspecified “mechanical equipment” from the ground and vertical pipes on the side of the building to climb atop the building.

According to Wray, eight rounds of ammunition were found on the roof after a sniper fatally shot Crooks.

“He could put more rounds out faster than he could with other types of weapons,” Wray said of the AR-15-style weapon Crooks used, which had been legally purchased years earlier by the shooter’s father.

Officials are still analyzing a drone that Wray said Crooks flew 200 yards (182 meters) from the stage just hours before the early evening shooting. It was recovered from the gunman’s vehicle.

According to the FBI director, there is currently no evidence that Crooks had any accomplices.

Three “relatively primitive” explosive devices were found, he said, two in the shooter’s vehicle in Butler and one in the shooter’s home in nearby Bethel Park. Wray said Crooks was carrying a transmitter, but it was unclear at this point whether it would have caused an explosion if he had used it.

Wray and other senior officials privately briefed members of Congress last week, telling them that Crooks had photos on his phone of Trump, Democratic President Joe Biden and other officials. He had also looked up the dates of the Democratic National Convention and Trump’s appearances.

But he stressed that unlike other known shooters, Crooks does not appear to have left a significant online footprint or participated extensively in conversations on public forums. He did say that Crooks sometimes used encrypted messaging apps, without going into details about those messages.

Wray, as he did at other congressional committee hearings, condemned damaging rhetoric and a heightened environment for threats, which targeted politicians, lawyers, judges and volunteer election officials. Wray himself was the subject of alleged threats, with a Georgia man charged in that case earlier this month.

Democrat Jerry Nadler of New York pointed out that Republicans, including Trump himself, often use inhumane and violent rhetoric.

“If you think the bullet from this one killer was a bolt from the blue, and not part of a wave of violence that has plagued this country for years, you are mistaken,” Nadler said.

Despite being Trump’s nominee, Wray has faced widespread hostile questioning from the Republican-led panel, reflecting ongoing discontent over the FBI’s investigation into possible ties between Russia and the 2016 campaign. The FBI is also searching Trump’s Florida estate for confidential documents after he reportedly ignored a subpoena.

Wray said in response to questions from Democrats that he was not familiar with the details of Project 2025the term for the nearly 1,000-page Heritage Foundation handbook for the next Republican administration. But he disapproved of any FBI reform that would involve firing officials for political reasons, or of any director taking direct ownership of a president’s priorities.