The gunman in the assassination attempt of former US president Donald Trump searched online for events of both Mr Trump and President Joe Biden and saw the Pennsylvania campaign rally where he opened fire last month as a “target of opportunity,” a senior FBI official has said.
Investigators who have conducted nearly 1,000 interviews do not have a motive for why 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at Mr Trump during a July 13 campaign rally but they believe that he conducted “extensive attack planning”.
This included looking up campaign events involving both the current president and former president, particularly in western Pennsylvania.
The FBI analysis of his online search history reveals a “sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some event, meaning he looked at any number of events or targets,” Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, told reporters on Wednesday.
Once a Trump rally was announced for July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, “he became hyper-focused on that specific event and looked at it as a target of opportunity”, Mr Rojek said.
Crooks’ internet searches in the days leading up to the rally included queries about the grounds where the rally was held, such as “Where will Trump speak from at Butler Farm Show?”, “Butler Farm Show podium” and ”Butler Farm Show photos”.
In the 30 days before the attack, the FBI says, Crooks did more than 60 internet searches related to Biden and Trump, including seeking the dates of both the Democratic and Republican national conventions.
FBI director Christopher Wray has previously revealed that one week before the shooting, Crooks did a Google search for “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?”.
That is an apparent reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter who killed President John F Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
The new details add to an emerging portrait of Crooks as a man who investigators say had taken an eerie interest in explosives, major events and prominent political figures, but whose internet searches across major parties have frustrated efforts to assign a simple motive.
“We have a clear idea of mindset, but we are not ready to make any conclusive statements regarding motive at this time,” Mr Rojek said.
The FBI found explosive devices in his car and home, and investigators say his internet searches revealed that since at least 2019 he had looked up information about bomb-making materials.
The FBI has said that Mr Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, was struck in the ear by a bullet or a bullet fragment in the assassination attempt.
Crooks fired eight shots from an AR-style rifle.
One rallygoer was killed and two others were injured before the gunman, who was positioned on the roof of a building less than 150 yards away, was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
