Who Is Thomas Crooks?

SUMMARY

Tucker Carlson's investigative report uncovers Thomas Crooks' verified online posts revealing violent threats and political shifts, while exposing FBI lies and cover-ups about the July 2024 Trump assassination attempt.

STATEMENTS

• The FBI claimed Thomas Crooks had no online presence, but hundreds of his verified YouTube comments from 2019-2020 show a detailed digital trail of violent threats.
• Crooks initially supported Trump fervently, calling him the definition of patriotism, but his views shifted radically during COVID-19 lockdowns toward left-wing criticism.
• Crooks posted calls for assassinations, including against Ilhan Omar and Trump-hating Democrats, espousing anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic themes.
• Federal investigators accessed Crooks' phone, computer, and encrypted accounts but withheld details from congressional reports.
• Crooks' body was cremated just 10 days after the shooting, preventing independent autopsies or toxicology tests.
• An FBI agent hosed down the crime scene the day after the shooting, destroying potential forensic evidence.
• Crooks searched online for mass shootings, bomb-making, and historical assassinations like Jack Ruby's killing of Lee Harvey Oswald over 700 times for Trump-related queries.
• A mysterious user, Willie Tepes, engaged Crooks online, pressuring him toward violence and linked to foreign Antifa and terrorist groups.
• The FBI ignored congressional subpoenas for Crooks' records, including search history and financial accounts, a year after the attempt.
• Crooks' YouTube account was suspended the day after the shooting for violating policies on violent organizations.
• Local police identified Crooks as suspicious but lost track of him before he climbed the unsecured rooftop.
• The Secret Service's anti-drone system failed during Crooks' pre-shooting drone surveillance over the rally site.
• FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate falsely described Crooks as a right-winger with anti-Semitic views to Congress.
• Crooks warned of civil war, stating armed Americans would target Washington rather than streets.
• The FBI used Cellebrite technology to unlock Crooks' phone in under 40 minutes but released no findings on his communications.
• Crooks' online activity ended abruptly after interactions with Willie Tepes, suggesting possible recruitment.
• Congressional investigations revealed the FBI obstructed access to surveillance footage from the gun range where Crooks trained.
• Trump administration officials claimed no "there there" in the case despite personal involvement in reviews.
• Crooks advocated terrorism-style attacks against the government, including bombings and assassinations of leaders.
• The FBI confirmed Crooks' accounts existed but later denied their authenticity publicly.

IDEAS

• Crooks' transformation from Trump supporter to critic during COVID highlights how pandemics can radicalize isolated individuals through shifting narratives on safety versus rights.
• Public violent posts under one's real name evading detection questions the effectiveness and true priorities of government social media surveillance programs.
• Cremating the shooter's body shortly after the event eliminates independent verification, raising suspicions of deliberate evidence destruction in high-profile cases.
• Interactions with anonymous online figures like Willie Tepes demonstrate how foreign-linked extremists can exploit vulnerable youth via digital platforms.
• The FBI's selective disclosure of Crooks' comments to portray him as right-wing suggests narrative control to fit political agendas rather than truth-seeking.
• Drone surveillance succeeding due to a timely system failure underscores vulnerabilities in event security reliant on technology.
• Hosing down the crime scene internally deviates from standard procedures, implying urgency to obscure physical evidence like blood for analysis.
• Crooks' searches for bomb-making and mass shootings reveal a pattern of escalating curiosity turning into actionable planning without intervention.
• Withholding gun range footage prevents scrutiny of whether Crooks trained with accomplices, challenging the lone-wolf narrative.
• Encrypted foreign emails and burner phones for a teenager indicate premeditated secrecy, possibly influenced by external guidance.
• Congressional stonewalling on subpoenas erodes public trust, turning investigations into tools for perpetuating mysteries.
• Media framing the shooting as a gun access issue for white men diverts from deeper questions of motive and institutional failures.
• The abrupt end to Crooks' online activity post-Tepes interaction hints at orchestrated silencing or radicalization completion.

INSIGHTS

• Government agencies' opacity in investigations fosters conspiracy theories, as withheld facts create vacuums filled by speculation rather than evidence.
• Radicalization often begins with extreme public expressions that go unaddressed, allowing isolated individuals to evolve into threats undetected.
• Political events like elections and pandemics serve as catalysts for ideological flips, amplifying pre-existing volatility in young minds.
• Technological surveillance tools exist to monitor threats, yet selective application suggests biases in targeting certain ideologies over others.
• Destroying or concealing physical evidence in assassinations prevents accountability, prioritizing institutional protection over public safety.
• Online anonymity enables foreign actors to recruit domestically, blurring lines between lone actors and coordinated plots.
• Narratives shaped by officials, like labeling a shooter ideologically, manipulate public perception to align with broader agendas.
• Security lapses, from drone failures to perimeter gaps, reveal over-reliance on protocols that fail under real-time pressures.
• Incomplete disclosures to Congress undermine democratic oversight, turning inquiries into performative exercises without resolution.
• Volatile youth with violent search histories signal intervention needs, yet systemic inaction allows escalation to tragedy.
• Mysterious digital contacts like Tepes exemplify how global networks exploit local grievances for destabilization.

QUOTES

• "Ilhan Omar and others are invaders and should honestly be killed and their dead bodies sent back."
• "Donald Trump was the literal definition of patriotism."
• "Every one of the Trump-hating Democrats deserve to have their heads chopped off and put on stakes for the world to see what happens when you fuck with America."
• "In my opinion, the only way to fight the government is with terrorism-style attacks. Sneak a bomb into an essential building and set it off before anyone sees you."
• "Cops can't arrest me if they're all dead."
• "It seems that you people don't understand that sometimes public safety comes before your personal rights."
• "The only real political power comes from the barrel of a gun."

HABITS

• Crooks habitually posted detailed violent threats on YouTube under his real name, building a public record of extremism over months.
• He regularly searched extreme topics like bomb-making and mass shootings, escalating from curiosity to planning.
• Crooks engaged in back-and-forth online debates, responding to critics and amplifying his radical views nightly.
• Maintaining multiple encrypted foreign email accounts and aliases became a routine for secretive communications.
• Dry-firing a handgun in his bedroom with targets was a repeated practice, as captured in personal videos.
• Monitoring political videos on MSNBC and CNN daily shaped his shifting ideological comments during key events.

FACTS

• Crooks' YouTube account featured 737 public comments between 2019 and 2020, many espousing political violence.
• The FBI unlocked Crooks' phone using Cellebrite technology in less than 40 minutes post-shooting.
• Crooks' body was cremated on July 23, 2024, just 10 days after the attempt, with FBI approval required.
• An FBI agent from the Technical Hazards Response Unit hosed down Crooks' rooftop position the day after the shooting.
• Crooks flew a drone over the rally site for 11 minutes that morning, coinciding with the Secret Service anti-drone system's downtime.
• Senator Ron Johnson's bipartisan subpoena for Crooks' records remained unanswered a year later.

REFERENCES

• YouTube account tomcrooks2178 (deactivated).
• Google Drive linked to Crooks' YouTube archive, including dry-firing videos.
• Email: tmcrooks7@gmail.com.
• Encrypted emails: americangamer@gmx.com (German) and Bcook@mailfence.com (Belgian).
• Snapchat: Tom_Crooks19.
• Venmo: Thomas-Crooks-12.
• PayPal alias: Rod Swanson.
• Discord account.
• Google Play: Colossal Microwave.
• Quizlet: Thomas_Crooks.
• Chess.com: Thomas Crooks.
• Quora handles: Thomas-Crooks 8 and Thomas Crooks 3.
• Willie Tepes' YouTube and Antifa/Nordic Resistance Movement links.
• Historical: Mao Zedong's quote on political power from guns.
• Searches: Jack Ruby, El Paso mass shooting, Oklahoma bombing.

HOW TO APPLY

• Verify online accounts by cross-referencing phone numbers and emails from public documents, as done with America First Legal's records to link Crooks' profiles.
• Retrieve archived data from deactivated platforms like YouTube using internet archive sites to preserve comments and metadata for authenticity checks.
• Analyze search histories and watch patterns to trace ideological shifts, such as Crooks' 700+ Trump queries evolving into violent topics during COVID.
• Confront agencies with specific evidence discrepancies, like matching archived comments to FBI's selective disclosures, to demand transparency.
• Investigate mysterious contacts by tracing usernames across platforms, revealing potential foreign ties like Willie Tepes to Antifa sites.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

FBI secrecy and lies about Crooks' violent online history obscure truths behind the Trump assassination attempt.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Demand congressional subpoenas enforce immediate release of all digital and forensic records in high-profile investigations.
• Implement mandatory independent autopsies and evidence preservation for political violence cases to prevent tampering.
• Enhance social media monitoring to flag real-name violent threats proactively, regardless of ideology.
• Require security perimeters include all adjacent buildings and active anti-drone systems for public events.
• Publicly disclose all online interactions in threat assessments to identify recruitment patterns early.
• Train law enforcement to maintain continuous tracking of suspicious individuals identified on-site.
• Scrutinize agency narratives against raw data, challenging mislabels like Crooks' political affiliation.
• Preserve crime scenes via third-party contractors to avoid internal alterations post-incident.

MEMO

In the shadow of a near-catastrophe on July 13, 2024, when Thomas Matthew Crooks fired upon former President Donald Trump from a rooftop in Butler, Pennsylvania, the nation grappled with unanswered questions. Tucker Carlson's new report pierces the veil of official silence, unveiling a trove of Crooks' digital footprints—hundreds of YouTube comments, search histories, and encrypted accounts—that the FBI has long dismissed or concealed. Far from the "online ghost" portrayed by investigators, Crooks emerges as a volatile teen whose posts brimmed with assassination fantasies and ideological fervor, a trail the bureau either ignored or suppressed.

Crooks' online life began with fervent Trump support in 2019, hailing the president as patriotism incarnate while unleashing vitriol against immigrants and Democrats, including calls to behead political foes. Yet by early 2020, amid COVID lockdowns, his rhetoric flipped: mocking Trump as stupid, defending quarantines over rights, and deriding conservatives as brainwashed racists. This metamorphosis, documented in verified comments retrieved from archives, underscores how isolation and global crises can warp young minds. Searches for bomb recipes, mass shootings, and historical assassins like Jack Ruby painted a portrait of obsession, culminating in manifestos advocating terrorism against government targets.

The FBI's handling of the case reeks of obstruction. Agents unlocked Crooks' devices swiftly using advanced tools but fed Congress a skewed narrative, labeling him a right-wing extremist despite evidence to the contrary. His body was cremated prematurely, erasing autopsy opportunities, while an agent personally hosed the crime scene—deviating from protocol and destroying traces. Surveillance footage from his gun range remains withheld, fueling doubts about accomplices. Even as Trump allies like Kash Patel and Pam Bondi claim exhaustive reviews yield "nothing there," bipartisan senators decry ignored subpoenas, leaving motives and connections shrouded.

A shadowy figure, Willie Tepes, lurks at the edges of Crooks' digital descent, goading him toward violence in comments echoing Mao's barrel-of-a-gun ethos. Linked to foreign Antifa and terrorist groups, Tepes vanished from records post-interaction, prompting speculation of recruitment. Crooks' luck on shooting day—drone flights evading detection, an unsecured rooftop, lost police pursuit—borders on the implausible, amplifying theories of deeper failures or involvement.

As media pivots to gun debates and phantom Iranian plots, the true scandal lies in institutional opacity. Why cremate evidence? Who was Tepes, and did the FBI monitor him? These questions demand answers to restore faith in safeguards against domestic threats. Without transparency, the Butler shooting risks becoming another emblem of eroded trust in America's guardians.