Digital Ghost No More: New Report Exposes Online Life of Trump’s Would-Be Assassin
A new report is challenging the official narrative of Thomas Crooks, the would-be assassin of President Donald Trump, alleging his digital trail tells “quite a different story” than what the FBI has presented. New York Post columnist Miranda Devine told Fox News that, contrary to the image of Crooks as a “ghost” with no discernible motive, a source has provided information from 17 different online accounts belonging to the 20-year-old. Devine, who has demanded a “better explanation” from the FBI and Secret Service, described a bizarre digital footprint that includes involvement in the “Furry” subculture on sites like DeviantArt and a sudden, radical shift in political ideology.
The report adds fresh scrutiny to the investigation of the July 2024 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, which killed firefighter Corey Comparatore and injured Trump and two others. Devine detailed that Crooks, who allegedly used they/them pronouns on one platform, appeared to be pro-Trump in his early teen years before his rhetoric took a “violent turn” and he “flip[ped] 180 degrees” to become “rabidly anti-Trump” around January 2020. She cited his interactions with a neo-Nazi figure online who encouraged increasingly violent rhetoric, noting a commonality with Tyler Robinson, the alleged assassin of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was also involved in the “furry culture.”
This newly revealed online presence stands in contrast to the FBI’s congressional statements, which described Crooks’ comments as reflecting “anti-Semitic and anti-immigration themes” but did not trace a clear political evolution. Devine asserted that the findings indicate “a lot of other information that the FBI either chose not to look at or is somehow keeping it under wraps,” raising significant questions about the thoroughness of the federal investigation and the true motive behind one of the most significant political violence events in recent history.
