GOP Lawmakers Reportedly Blindsided by New Revelations in Trump Assassination Attempt Probe
Newly surfaced documents indicate the shooter's father sought to restrict his son's firearm access months before the July 2024 rally incident.
Republican lawmakers involved in investigating the 2024 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump have expressed surprise over newly released documents detailing the shooter's background. The documents reportedly show that Thomas Matthew Crooks' father had searched for ways to prevent his son from accessing firearms approximately two months before the attack.
Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who chaired a bipartisan House task force on the shooting, told Fox News that federal agencies provided limited cooperation during their investigation, which concluded with a report on December 10, 2024. "During our piece that we were working on, none of the federal agencies were working with us at all," Kelly stated. "So this is two years later. Nobody's gotten back to us."
Kelly further noted that the task force's report relied heavily on information from local authorities due to a lack of access to federal data during the previous administration. "That's under the former administration. So everything that's under the executive branch at that time, under the Biden administration, we had no access to information at that time," he said.
A source familiar with the task force's work indicated that the father's search for gun access restrictions was not known to House lawmakers during their investigation. The task force report did, however, confirm that the father handed Thomas Crooks the rifle used in the assassination attempt on July 13, 2024.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been reviewing documents related to the incident. According to reports, the records turned over to the Senate suggest that Thomas Crooks' actions were unexpected by his family, and his motive remains unclear. Committee members have stated they had not yet seen the FBI documents in question but emphasized the need for full transparency.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, commented on the release of the documents, stating, "This is something that should have happened," but added that "there was still so much that we don't know about what happened." He called for a comprehensive accounting of the day's events and any law enforcement failures that may have occurred.
Regarding the father's efforts to restrict gun access, Hawley questioned, "This gets back to if this guy was out there, if he was, if he was displaying erratic behavior, was that reported?" He recalled the ease with which one could access the rooftop from which Crooks fired and criticized the apparent lack of coordination among law enforcement agencies present that day.
Hawley warned against allowing the case to become another unresolved historical event, comparing it to the ongoing questions surrounding the JFK assassination. "We owe it to the American people to figure out what exactly happened and what we need to fix. Clearly, there were massive failures."