I was complaining on social media yesterday, perhaps unfairly, about the amount of time it's been taking the FBI to crack into the phone that belonged to deceased gunman Thomas Crooks. After all, they were able to crack the phones of everyone that was within 50 miles of the Capitol on January 6, 2001. What would make this kid's phone such a mystery? Well, last night they reportedly accomplished the task. The Bureau accessed the contents of Crooks' phone, but the search supposedly came up dry. They're saying that the records they found contained "no tips" as to the shooter's motive or any information suggesting he was in contact with anyone else about his plans. The search now moves to the killer's laptop. Let's hope they have better luck there.

Thomas Crooks’ phone has offered federal investigators no clear explanations about why the 20-year-old from suburban Pittsburgh tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump, law enforcement sources told The Post.

Investigators have now turned their attention to the shooter’s laptop in the hopes of uncovering clues about his motive — a question that has proven still elusive two days after the shooting that rocked the nation.

Investigators have been able to piece together some clues about Crooks’ movements in before the shooting at 6:11 p.m. on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The idea that the search of the phone came up dry just seems so implausible to me. Particularly given his young age, Thomas Crooks no doubt grew up in a world with cell phones, web access, and social media accounts. Unless he was living in a monastery he must have left some sort of online footprint behind. Could he really have been planning something this huge that he surely must have known would result in his own death without ever mentioning it to anyone?

I suppose that's possible if he was secretly some sort of criminal mastermind. It appears that he mentioned nothing at all to his own family. The only comment I've heard from his father thus far reflected a desire to "find out what the hell is going on." Yet it doesn't seem likely that someone could be driven that far out on the fringe in complete isolation. Even if Crooks wasn't talking about this with his family or real-world friends, it just seems as if he had to have been discussing it on social media with like-minded, violent freaks. If so, perhaps he was cautious enough to limit that activity to his laptop. I suppose it's also possible that he could have purged his social media posts and accounts before heading out to make his assassination attempt. If the FBI manages to crack the laptop, perhaps we'll have those answers soon enough. If he was working with anyone else, we very much need to know about it.

I keep qualifying my comments about the FBI in terms of their competence and willingness to fully undertake this investigation, though I feel guilty for doing so. But if we're being frank about this, they've given us more than a few reasons to be distrustful, particularly over the past few years. The FBI has been acting particularly weaponized against Donald Trump, anyone who was in the vicinity of the J-6 riots, and conservatives in general. They have seemed more interested in hunting down people who pray outside of abortion clinics and Christians attending Latin mass than leftists engaged in actual violence and crimes. I'm hoping to be wrong in this case, but I wasn't immediately convinced that they would be particularly enthusiastic about solving a case involving somebody who took a shot at Trump.

One other potentially interesting fact has been unearthed as part of the ongoing investigation. Crooks' father reported him missing on Saturday afternoon, along with one of the many rifles he kept in their suburban home. Thomas Crooks was 20 years old and was presumably under no obligation to report his comings and goings to his parents. How long had be been "missing" before the father phoned in the report? How and when did he notice that one of his rifles was also missing and had his son ever borrowed a weapon before? It seems like he must have or else he pulled off a remarkably lucky shot on Saturday for a first-timer. The fact that the father chose to call in a missing person report (and a missing gun as well) just seems like an awfully convenient part of a supporting alibi. But perhaps I'm drifting into paranoia again.