Would-be Donald Trump ass@ssin, Thomas Matthew Crooks wrote a chilling online message that hinted at plans for the day he shot the former president at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally over the weekend.
“July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds,” the 20-year-old gunman allegedly wrote on Steam, a popular online platform where gamers communicate, Fox News reported.
The message was revealed to US senators during a briefing by top law enforcement officials on Wednesday, July 17.
Crooks, 20, also had images of the Trump as well as President Biden on his cellphone, and searched the dates of the Democratic National Convention and Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, law enforcement sources reportedly said .
Investigators are still checking the shooter’s phones and computer in search of answers to the assassination attempt but have not yet identified a motive.
WFBI’s probe into the gunman’s online search history did not reveal which side of the political spectrum Crooks, a registered Republican, was on, the report adds.
Crooks, who was shot dead seconds after firing at the former president, had two cellphones, a primary device recovered near his body and a secondary one at his home that had just 27 contacts, according to Fox.
Details of his search history were released as news broke that 20 minutes passed between the time that Secret Service snipers first spotted Crooks perched on a roof with a rifle and the time he began firing at the former president.
The gunfire killed a 50-year-old married dad of two girls in attendance and injured two other rally-goers.
Multiple law enforcement sources and legislators briefed on the investigation told ABC, who first broke the news, that snipers saw Crooks on the roof outside the rally’s security zone at 5:52 p.m. before the shooting began at 6:12 p.m.
The shocking 20-minute time gap was confirmed secret service officials who told Congress that at one point, Crooks was reportedly peering through his rangefinder at the snipers who were looking back at him.
