Phone search shows Trump shooter had photos of Trump, Biden, Garland

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 saved photos of the two men on his phone, according to lawmakers and others briefed on the investigation.

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

Police circulated a photo of Thomas Matthew Crooks before he shot former President Donald Trump on July 13. (Video: Hadley Green, Erin Patrick O'Connor/The Washington Post)

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 investigation said.

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

Crooks arrived at the rally site Saturday morning, hours before the event began. He was spotted and flagged as a suspect an hour before the rally began, a senator who was briefed Wednesday said. And local police who were at the scene alerted the Secret Service and sent them a photo of Crooks 26 minutes before he opened fire from the roof of an industrial building.

He had a rangefinder and a backpack, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said after Wednesday's briefing, in a statement calling for the resignation of U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.

Authorities say Crooks shot Trump with an AR-style rifle from a rooftop outside the rally's security perimeter, killing one person in the crowd and seriously wounding two others. He was later fatally shot by the Secret Service. Trump was wounded. He said a bullet pierced his ear and that he wore a bandage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, but his campaign has not provided further details about his injury or treatment.

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

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

Crooks' family life and his relationship with his parents are also of particular interest to investigators trying to understand his thinking, according to two people familiar with the situation, who, like the others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Both of his parents have health problems, and while the young man lived with them, it does not appear to investigators so far that they were closely monitoring his activities or interests in the days and months before the shooting, these people said.

Crooks, who graduated in May with an associate degree in engineering 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 had no significant online profile or known political activity. He was an excellent math student in high school. His guidance counselor described him as a quiet, well-mannered, well-spoken man with a small group of friends.

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

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