When 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at Donald Trump amid his Butler, Pennsylvania rally in July 2024, it marked the end of his short life. The former president survived, and in the wake of the attack, many wondered how Crooks was able to climb onto a roof with an AR-15 rifle so close to his target. In the following weeks, reporting revealed multiple security failures at the event and many things that just didn't make sense about the incident or Trump's would-be assassin.
A bipartisan House of Representatives task force convened to investigate the incident. One member, Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins, took aim at the FBI for releasing Crooks' body for cremation 10 days after the attempt on Trump's life, suggesting it amounted to obstruction (the FBI refuted his claims and said everything was done according to standard procedure). On September 26, 2024, the task force held its first hearing, and yet more details about the plot surfaced that don't seem to make sense.
Even only a week after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life in Butler, Pennsylvania, The New Yorker posted the headline, "Are we already moving on from the assassination attempt on Donald Trump?" And indeed, with all the typical pre-presidential election nonsense that was cycling through news outlets — on top of all the usual nonsense — it definitely seemed like everyone sort of shoulder-shrugged the whole live-on-TV-once-in-a-generation-bullet-to-the-ear thing. But questions still remain — lots of questions. This is especially true of the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks. Answering these questions is critical not only to understanding the whys and hows of what happened, but making sure something similar doesn't happen again.
Federal investigators continue to search for the motive behind suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks' attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump at an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. What they have pieced together is his movements before the attack. According to CNN, the 20-year-old shooter from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania spent time at a gun range and bought a ladder and ammunition before heading to just outside the rally where he would make his attempt on Trump. Before Crooks died in a hail of Secret Service gunfire, he shot the former president in the right ear, killed one of the rally attendees, and critically wounded two others.
Being a world leader is dangerous business. Surprisingly, in more than two centuries, only four American presidents have been killed while in office, beginning with the shooting death of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. In office from 2017 until 2021, the 45th U.S. Commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, clearly survived his time in the White House. There were several attempts on his life, though, including three during his administration and two while a presidential candidate (although one turned out to be a false alarm). Perhaps unsurprisingly, "The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021" claims that Trump was worried about attacks on his life, despite his public persona suggesting otherwise. "At a cocktail party, Trump told several of his Florida friends he was afraid Iran would try to assassinate him, so he had to go back to Washington where he would be safer," the book reads.
Learn things you may not know about the individuals who have held the highest office in the U.S. and what it means to be president.
