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The FBI “stonewalled” the House investigation into Thomas Crooks’ attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, two Republican lawmakers were quoted as telling the New York Post.
Earlier this week, the newspaper reported on social media posts believed to be linked to the 20-year-old shooter. The Post described the messages as including numerous endorsements of political violence and a sharp turn away from being an advocate for Trump.
Reps. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania and Pat Fallon of Texas said the FBI never shared those files with members of Congress who were investigating the attempted assassination in July 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to the New York Post.
“We were stymied so much by the feds on what we could look at, what we couldn’t look at,” Kelly told the Post. “We knew we were going to get stonewalled on a lot of stuff.”
Then-Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, is whisked away by Secret Service after shots rang out at a campaign rally at Butler Farm Show Inc. on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. On the right, an image of the gunman, Thomas Crooks, taken earlier that day. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images, Obtained by Fox News Digital)
“I think that there’s so many unanswered questions about it,” Kelly added. “They don’t want people to handle the truth.”
“We all know it wasn’t done, it wasn’t complete and the reason for that is they can’t handle the truth,” Kelly also reportedly said in reference to how the FBI treated the congressional probe.
Authorities told Congress they found no evidence that Crooks followed any particular ideology on his laptop, but according to the Post’s source, there was a clear timeline of Crooks’ changing ideology and violent rhetoric that remains to be addressed.
“The danger Crooks posed was visible for years in public online spaces,” an unnamed source said to have uncovered more than a dozen of Crooks’ accounts told the paper. “His radicalization, violent rhetoric and obsession with political violence were all documented under his real name. The threat wasn’t hidden.”
While the FBI has not publicly identified a political motive, Crooks’ online comments over several years shifted from pro-Trump to anti-Trump, according to digital records described by the Post. Whatever caused that shift remains unclear, but before he focused his murderous intent on the president, his posts about rage and violence were reportedly directed at Democrats.
“I don’t think any of us came out of that feeling, ‘You know what we really got the answers we were looking for,’” Kelly told the Post about the House committee’s meetings with the FBI. Their report was released in December.
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Fallon called for a new investigation in light of the Post’s reported findings, telling the newspaper that he doesn’t recall the FBI sharing those details when he was a part of the congressional investigation committee.
“I don’t think it would do any harm at all,” he added. “You can’t investigate these things enough.”
The FBI did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
“The FBI’s investigation into Thomas Crooks identified and examined over 20 online accounts, data extracted from over a dozen electronic devices, examination of numerous financial accounts, and over 1,000 interviews and 2000 public tips,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X last week.
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“The investigation, conducted by over 480 FBI employees, revealed Crooks had limited online and in person interactions, planned and conducted the attack alone, and did not leak or share his intent to engage in the attack with anyone,” he added.
Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
