The Pennsylvania man who attempted to kill former President Donald J. Trump at an election rally July 13 used a laptop computer to search the internet for information on “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy?” FBI Director Christopher Wray told a U.S. House committee on July 24.
Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, generally had a high level of interest in public figures but turned his attention in earnest to Trump around July 6.
Wray’s statement about the Google search done on a laptop associated with Crooks was among the biggest disclosures to date about the shooting of Trump at the Butler Farm Show Inc. fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Crooks’ alleged search was a reference to gunman Lee Harvey Oswald and the shots he fired from the Texas School Book Depository at President John F. Kennedy as Kennedy’s motorcade rode through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Kennedy died from wounds suffered in the shooting.