Republican lawmakers surprised by new revelations about Butler assassination attempt on Trump

The new revelations on Tuesday about Thomas Matthew Crooks and his attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, then-candidate for president, came as quite a surprise to Republican lawmakers. 

The 20-year-old fired on Trump in July 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania, during a presidential campaign speech, grazing his ear, and seen live on TV. An attendee at the rally was killed while attempting to shield his family. Crooks, who fired his shots from a nearby rooftop, was shot dead almost immediately. 

"During our piece that we were working on, none of the federal agencies were working with us at all. They were going to work on their own, and they told us, ‘We're going to do ours, and then we'll get back to you.’ So this is two years later. Nobody's gotten back to us," Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who was chairman of a bipartisan House task force tasked with investigating the shooting, told Fox News. 

"That's under the former administration. So everything that's under the executive branch at that time, under the Biden administration, we had no access to information at that time," he said.

The task force released its report on Dec. 10, 2024, largely based on input from local authorities and little from the federal level.

Among the new revelations were that Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, had tried to prevent his son from accessing firearms in May 2024, approximately two months before the attempted assassination, and that the task force was not aware that federal authorities had interviewed Crooks’ family. 

The records were obtained as part of an ongoing inquiry by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. They show that Crooks’ actions were a surprise to his family, and so far they provide no additional explanation of his motive.