A House task force’s investigative findings revealed new information about the shooter who tried to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and unearthed new mysteries about the July 13 attack.
Here are five things we learned from the task force’s final report.
- Mysterious bullet hole in a hat
The FBI reconstructed the shooting and successfully established bullet trajectories for six of the 10 rounds fired — eight from shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, one from a local law enforcement officer who fired at Crooks and one from the Secret Service sniper who killed Crooks.
Those six bullets all originated from north of the stage where Mr. Trump spoke, in the direction of the AGR International complex from which Crooks shot.
“The FBI found that, aside from a bullet hole in a hat, all bullet holes and impacts the FBI identified originated from the north, toward the AGR complex,” the task force report said.
The task force report says nothing else about the bullet hole in a hat, raising all types of questions. Whose hat was it? Did the FBI determine the bullet hole came from a bullet fired from a different direction or a spun-off fragment from one of Crooks’ bullets?
All the report says is that the FBI “was unable to link every identified hole or impact with a specific bullet or bullet fragment trajectory because of several limitations,” including that bullets that fragment from encounters with intervening objects can produce additional trajectories.
The FBI expert who conducted the bullet trajectory analysis identified 35 places of impact from the six trajectories he was able to reconstruct.
“There were no impacts or fragmentation at the podium where former President Trump spoke, the bleacher area where Mr. Comperatore was standing at the time of the shooting, or the AGR roof,” the report said, referring to rally attendee Corey Comperatore, who was killed in the shooting. “One of the bullets Crooks fired was not recovered.”
The Washington Times reached out to the FBI for comment.
- More questions about damaged buttstock
The buttstock of Crooks’ rifle was damaged in the shooting, but the FBI has yet to say how.
Rep. Clay Higgins, one of the task force members who has been conducting his own parallel investigation, told The Times he believes the damage to the rifle’s buttstock came from a bullet fired by a Butler County SWAT officer who shot at Crooks.
However, the report offers an alternative explanation for how the buttstock was hit. It cited a Pennsylvania State Police report concluding the plastic section dislodged and missing from the rifle’s buttstock “was later determined to be a result of the USSS counter-sniper’s projectile impact after traveling through Crooks’ head.”
The FBI believes the buttstock was likely damaged through a projectile impact and tested the impacted area for lead, which came back positive. The FBI has not determined the origin of the lead.
- New information about Crooks’ explosive devices
The FBI previously said that the receivers on the two self-made improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that it recovered from Crooks’ vehicle were set to the off position but otherwise capable of exploding.
The task force report does not shed light on why Crooks brought the IEDs with him to the rally but left them in the off position. However, it describes the potential impact of the IEDs, as tested by the FBI.
“Per the FBI, anyone within ten feet of the IEDs (had they been successfully detonated) would have immediately been killed,” the report said.
The FBI also found an IED in Crooks’ room at his home that the FBI previously said was missing initiation system components and nonfunctional.
The task force report reveals that Crooks had “placed the necessary materials nearby to quickly complete the IED” and preprogrammed its receiver to pair to the same handheld remote transmitter he had connected to the two fully assembled IEDs.
The combination of components Crooks used to build the IEDs was unusual and “overengineered,” according to the FBI’s expert, who concluded Crooks’ “ambitions exceeded his capabilities.”
- Crooks’ father confirms his ’declining mental health’
Although the task force did not speak to Crooks’ family directly, the panel obtained more information about him from other investigations.
“Crooks’ father described his son’s mental health as declining,” the report said, noting that description came from a Pennsylvania State Police report.
The father told the state police that his son never used illegal drugs and was not taking any prescription medications.
The FBI has not identified a motive for Crooks’ shooting nor drawn any public conclusions about his mental state. While not ruling out mental health issues, the FBI said on July 29 that it had no evidence of mental health treatment, institutionalization, medications or anything else confirming disorders.
The FBI and other law enforcement officials reportedly told Mr. Trump during his witness interview that Crooks may have been struggling for years with an undiagnosed disorder, according to ABC News.
- New idea for reforming the Secret Service
Lawmakers have floated several ideas for overhauling the Secret Service since the assassination attempts. That includes removing the agency from the giant Department of Homeland Security or shifting its responsibility for financial crime investigations to another department so the Secret Service can focus on protective operations.
The task force said Congress should consider both of those options but also recommended lawmakers to mull over another option: “Reduce the number of protectees.”
The Secret Service has roughly three dozen permanent protectees, the most high profile of which are the president and vice president and currently the president-elect and vice president-elect.
The number of Secret Service protectees has expanded over the years, creating resource demands that are especially taxing “during the longer and more intensive modern presidential campaign seasons,” the report said.
“Additionally, because the USSS protects foreign dignitaries, there is a significant increase in work during the U.N. General Assembly, which occurs in September at the height of campaign season,” it said. “As a result, Congress, DHS, and the USSS should jointly consider the protective role the USSS plays for foreign leaders and consider whether such duties can be transferred or abrogated in order to focus on the USSS’s primary duty: to protect the president and other critical U.S. leaders.”
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.