Federal Files Reveal Disturbing New Details About Would-Be Trump Assassin Thomas Crooks

Thomas Crooks’ father repeatedly changed the combination to his gun safe after catching his son watching him enter the code. On the morning of the Butler assassination attempt, he opened it himself and handed over the rifle.

Matthew Crooks told federal investigators he believed his son was going to a shooting range on July 13, 2024. Instead, the 20-year-old used the Panther Arms A-15 semi-automatic rifle to try to kill President Donald Trump at his Pennsylvania campaign rally.

The account appears in federal records reviewed by the New York Post and provided to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, whose investigation into the assassination attempt is continuing.

Less than a week before the attack, Matthew had witnessed behavior he later described to investigators.

Watching through a surveillance camera on July 7, 2024, he saw Thomas pacing in the family’s garage while cleaning a gun, his “arms going up and down … frantically talking and not making any sense.”

Matthew also recalled a conversation he considered “odd”: Thomas wanted to know whether “he would have to do a background check” to purchase his father’s Glock pistol. Fox News also reported Tuesday that Crooks had gun parts delivered to his home under the pseudonym “Bob Dole,” likely referencing the longtime Kansas senator.

Firearms dominated the brief conversations between father and son, according to Matthew’s account. But he did not describe their mutual interest as a way of building a closer relationship.

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He told investigators Thomas “had ulterior motives” that became apparent “the minute he pulled that trigger,” an apparent reference to the assassination attempt.

The documents detail Thomas Crooks’ growing fixation on firearms and long-distance shooting in the years before the Butler attack. His father said that interest began during the pandemic, though his early attempts at target shooting went poorly.

Matthew described his son as a “terrible” shot.

“He could not hit the paper [target],” read a summary of Matthew’s FBI interview, conducted the day after the rally shooting.

His father estimated that Thomas needed four or five years of practice before he could hit the paper target.

By the morning of the attack, Matthew was still taking precautions with the gun safe, frequently changing its combination because his son had watched over his shoulder as he unlocked it.

Yet he gave Thomas the rifle that day, believing his son’s destination was a shooting range.

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