Washington — Former President Donald Trump has agreed to speak with the FBI for what the bureau described as a “standard victim interview” to discuss the attempted assassination against him at his Pennsylvania rally earlier this month, an FBI official said in a call with reporters Monday.
Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, told reporters that the bureau reached out to Trump and he agreed to the interview. It is unclear when it will take place.
“We want to get his perspective on what he observed,” he said. “It is a standard victim interview.”
The FBI has been investigating the shooting at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, and has conducted 450 interviews. As part of its efforts to identify the motive of the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, the bureau is seeking information from 86 companies, including gaming platforms, messaging apps and social media platforms, Rojek said.
Crooks opened fire on the crowd using an AR-style rifle, injuring Trump and two others and killing one attendee. He was killed by a Secret Service sniper, and federal authorities continue to investigate the shooter and his actions in the lead-up to the attack. The FBI has not yet found a motive and believes Crooks acted alone, without any accomplices or co-conspirators, officials reiterated Monday.
FBI Director Chris Wray told lawmakers last week that though there is not yet a “clear picture” of the gunman’s motive, investigators believe he became focused on Trump and the rally in Butler around July 6. The FBI analyzed a laptop tied to Crooks and found he conducted a Google search for “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy,” a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The day that internet search was conducted, July 6, was the same day Crooks registered to attend Trump’s rally, Wray said.
Agents also recovered a total of three “relatively crude” explosive devices, Wray said. Two were in Crooks’ vehicle and one was at his residence. The FBI chief told the House Judiciary Committee that the gunman had a transmitter that would’ve allowed him to detonate the explosives in his car remotely, but the receivers on the bombs were turned off.
The FBI told reporters that in addition to the search about Kennedy’s assassination, Crooks also searched for information about power plants, improvised explosive devices, mass shootings and the assassination attempt against the prime minister of Slovakia in May.
