The two-year anniversary of the attempted assassination of then-candidate Donald Trump at Butler, PA, marks a day of unanswered questions and unfulfilled promises of transparency from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The incident occurred on July 13, 2024, and despite numerous investigations, the public remains in the dark about who the shooter was.
The U.S. Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, the Office of the Inspector General of the DHS, the Pennsylvania State Police/Butler County officials, including the coroner, the Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees, the House of Representatives Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump, and the lead investigative body, the FBI, all investigated the incident, but none can provide basic information about the shooter's identity.
The FBI, as the lead investigative body, has been the least cooperative or transparent. Congressional Task Force Chairman, Mike Kelly, wrote that the FBI "stonewalled" the investigation, refusing to share crucial files, resulting in "deliberate" obstruction or pure "incompetence." This lack of transparency continued into the Trump Administration, despite promises of full disclosure from FBI Director Kash Patel.
Judicial Watch, a conservative investigative group, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in July 2025, seeking comprehensive investigative files relating to the alleged shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks. While the FBI has been supplying the organization with heavily redacted documents, the process has been slow, with an estimated 75,000 documents to be released.
The investigations have raised several unanswered questions, including what physical evidence was collected to identify the shooter, such as DNA, dental, or blood-based tests. None of the official investigations mention the alleged shooter's body lying on the AGR Building roof all night, until 6 a.m. the morning after the shooting, raising concerns about chain of custody issues.
Further, no information has been provided about the eyeglasses worn by the alleged shooter, despite photographs showing no eyeglasses on the deceased body. The Butler County Coroner's job is to list everything on the deceased body, but no mention of the eyeglasses was made. This raises questions about the identity of the body on the AGR Building roof.
The public is also left in the dark about the family of the alleged shooter, including their mental health professionals and their son's alleged mental difficulties. The father of the alleged shooter noticed odd behavior, such as dancing and waving hands, but failed to notice bomb-making materials in the son's basement bedroom.
Two years later, the public is no closer to knowing who shot and wounded Trump and two others, and killed Corey Comperatore in Butler, PA. The reason for this lack of transparency is due to state and federal officials purposefully withholding investigative material.
