The gunman who nearly killed former President Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month used encrypted messaging accounts on multiple platforms based in Belgium, New Zealand and Germany, according to testimony from a lawmaker appointed to a congressional task force investigating the assassination attempt.
Republican Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, a retired Green Beret who was appointed to the 13-member bipartisan House task force investigating Trump’s attempted assassination, told reporters about the reports Wednesday at the Trump Hotel in Chicago.
A reporter asked Waltz what he and other task force members had learned during the investigation and about the encrypted messages on the shooter’s cell phone.
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A House member on a committee investigating Trump’s attempted assassination said the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, had encrypted accounts on messaging apps based in Germany, Belgium and New Zealand.
“We haven’t found out much yet. We haven’t found out much about these overseas accounts,” he said, referring to the accounts of would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks. “We know that they were, if I understand correctly, in Belgium, New Zealand and Germany.”
“Why does a 19-year-old boy who works as a nursing assistant need encrypted platforms that are not even located in the United States, but rather overseas, where, as most terrorist organizations know, it is harder for our law enforcement agencies to get in? I have been asking myself that question since day one.”
The congressman then turned his attention to the FBI and the Secret Service, accusing them of not saying anything until they had completed their investigations in a few months.
“They have to release information as soon as they come across it, because this was not an isolated incident,” Waltz said. “The threats are always threats from Iran.”
According to the FBI, the assassination attempt on Trump was the result of “careful planning” and reconnaissance of the rally site
Republican Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida said he had learned that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the potential Trump assassin, had encrypted accounts abroad. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Waltz then referred to an alleged but foiled plot involving a Pakistani national who paid assassins to kill Trump and other U.S. officials.
The New York Post reported that the FBI is scheduled to brief task force members on Wednesday, which Waltz hopes will provide insight into the “ridiculously inadequate” security measures at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler on July 13, 2024.
Both the FBI and the Secret Service are conducting their own investigations into the attack, as is the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General.
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On the evening of the rally, Crooks opened fire on the main stage, grazing Trump’s ear with a bullet. Crooks also killed rally attendee Corey Comperatore, 50, and wounded 57-year-old David Dutch and 54-year-old James Copenhaver.
