The FBI said Wednesday that federal investigators have not identified a motive or found evidence of a second shooter in the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a rally in Butler County.

“All the rounds have been accounted for. We have zero reason to believe there was a second shooter,” Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh office, said during a telephone briefing for national media.

Conspiracy theories have proliferated online since the shooting and have been shared by some conservative members of Congress.

Agents sought to dispel rumors claiming Thomas Crooks acted with an accomplice when he shot and injured Trump, killed a rallygoer and severely wounded two other attendees at the Butler Farm Show complex in Butler.

Bobby Wells, assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division in Washington, D.C., said the agency has not uncovered any evidence Crooks had co-conspirators or “was directed by a foreign entity.”

Agents on the call detailed Crooks’ internet search history and said he made dozens of online queries for information about Trump and President Joe Biden. Federal investigators said they have conducted nearly 1,000 interviews, served numerous search warrants and analyzed hundreds of hours of video footage.

Crooks, a 20-year-old nursing home aide from Bethel Park, searched for information about where Trump would be standing at the Butler Farm Show complex, the site of the rally, and where the podium would be.

He also searched for information about how far away gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was from President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.

Rojek said Crooks’ online history doesn’t suggest he was fixated only on Trump. Instead, according to Rojek, Crooks explored numerous events and potential targets over the past year.

Only when the Trump rally was announced in Butler, about an hour from Crooks’ home, did he become more intent on the shooting, said Rojek.

“When the Trump rally was announced in early July, he became hyper-focused on that specific event and looked at it as a target of opportunity,” he said.

Federal agents said Wednesday that Crooks’ online search history and social media presence reflected a mixture of ideologies. They did not elaborate.

“We have a clear idea of mindset, but we are not ready to make statements on motive,” Wells said.

Rojek said the FBI continues to share information with investigating agencies, including the congressional task force looking into the shooting.

The task force, chaired by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, has vowed to find answers to some of the shooting’s more perplexing questions, including why no law enforcement was stationed on the warehouse roof from which Crooks fired, and why Trump was allowed to take the stage even as law enforcement officers saw Crooks walking near the warehouse and communicated anxiety about his presence.

Rojek said federal agents have not found any evidence law enforcement officers were stationed on the warehouse roof at any time before or during the July rally.

He said Crooks was first spotted outside the farm show complex grounds at 4:26 p.m. that day, less than two hours before the shooting.

At 6:05 p.m., he climbed atop a warehouse outside of the complex and walked across multiple roofs before arriving at the warehouse closest to the complex. At 6:11, the investigation found, he fired at Trump.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the Secret Service director resigned, gaps in security were exposed and finger-pointing erupted between local law enforcement and the Secret Service.

Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. told a Senate committee last month the security for the rally was “a failure on multiple levels.”

Rojek said the FBI is continuing its investigation into motive but is not in charge of investigating other law enforcement activity or any security lapses that occurred.

“The FBI is responsible for investigating the actions of the subject. It is not the FBI’s role to investigate the actions, security posture or the responsibilities of the Secret Service or local law enforcement related to the campaign rally,” Rojek said.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)