Photos of Trump and Biden found on rally shooter’s phone, but motive unclear

The 20-year-old Pennsylvania man who tried to kill former president Donald Trump at a rally last weekend had searched online for information about Trump and President Biden and had photos of both men saved on his phone, according to lawmakers and others briefed on the investigation.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was working at a nursing home in Bethel Park, Pa., after growing up there and graduating this spring from a nearby community college, visited the site of Trump’s rally nearly a week in advance, the lawmakers and others said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public by the FBI.

In addition to Trump and Biden, the shooter had photos of Attorney General Merrick Garland and a member of the British royal family saved on his phone, two people familiar with the probe said.

He had searched for information about major depressive disorder, the rally in Butler, Pa., and the Democratic National Convention scheduled for August.

Crooks arrived at the rally site Saturday morning, hours before the event was to begin. He was spotted and flagged as suspicious an hour before the rally started, a senator who was part of a Wednesday briefing said afterward. And local police who were at the scene alerted the Secret Service and sent them a photo of Crooks 26 minutes before the young man opened fire from the roof of an industrial building.

“He had a range finder and a backpack,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said after Wednesday’s briefing, in a statement that called for U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to step down.

Authorities say Crooks fired an AR-style rifle at Trump from a rooftop outside the rally security perimeter, killing one person in the crowd and critically injuring two others. He was then fatally shot by the Secret Service. Trump was injured. He has said a bullet “pierced” his ear, and has been wearing a bandage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, but his campaign has not offered any more details on his injury or treatment.

Despite a massive investigation launched after the shooting, and an avalanche of media attention, very little information has surfaced publicly about Crooks’s interests and beliefs, or what may have led him to attempt the assassination.

FBI agents used technology from Cellebrite, a company well known among law enforcement agencies for helping them access data on phones seized or recovered in criminal investigations, to quickly access a cellphone they found with Crooks’s body, people familiar with the investigation told The Washington Post this week.

Crooks’s home life, and relationship with his parents, is also of particular interest to investigators as they try to understand his thinking, according to two people familiar with the situation who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Both of his parents have health issues, and while the young man lived with them, so far it does not appear to investigators that they were keeping close tabs on his activities or interests in the days and months leading up to the shooting, these people said.

Crooks, who graduated in May with an associate’s degree in engineering science from the Community College of Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania, had planned to enroll at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh this fall.

A registered Republican, he did not have a significant online profile or known political activity. He was a strong math student in high school. His guidance counselor described him as quiet, well behaved and well spoken, with a small group of friends.

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Erin Cox and Gregory S. Schneider contributed to this report.