After initially telling us that they "came up empty" when searching the cell phone(s) and laptop of Thomas Crooks, the young man who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump on July 13, the FBI is now being a bit more forthcoming with the House Oversight Committee. Checking out Crooks' web search history, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that the shooter had searched for information about how far away Lee Harvey Oswald was from John F. Kennedy when he (allegedly) fired the fatal shots that killed the President in Texas. That search was conducted on the same day that Crooks registered to attend the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. While still not conclusive, it certainly seems to indicate his state of mind at the time, but Wray also said that they still can't identify conclusive information about Crooks' motive for wanting to kill Trump. Wray also had some other details to offer regarding what they had learned about the attack. (NY Post)

Trump gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks searched for details about Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of President John F. Kennedy before he opened fire on the former president at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month, the FBI director revealed Wednesday.

“We’ve just in the last couple of days found that from our review … analysis of a laptop that the investigation ties to the shooter reveals that on July 6, he did a Google search for ‘How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?'” Christopher Wray told a congressional hearing.

The chilling detail is the latest hint at why Crooks tried to kill Trump during his appearance on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania. So far, investigators have not been able to find conclusive clues about his motive.

The linked report reminds us that Oswald's shot at Kennedy was made from approximately 88 yards. That was considerably closer than the 130-yard shot that Crooks took at Trump. Both were from an elevated platform. For some reason, I had long believed that Oswald's shot was much longer, but I went back to check and that's apparently accurate. In any event, that search history suggests that Crooks knew when he signed up for the rally that he was going there with the intention to kill Donald Trump, as if we needed further confirmation.

Wray also revealed that the explosive charges in Crooks' vehicle and home were real. They were rigged to be detonated remotely, but the power switch on the shooter's detonating device was not functioning properly. Also, the drone that Crooks was seen flying over the rally site was hooked up to livestream the video it was taking back to the shooter's phone. He had it in the air for approximately eleven minutes, apparently taking in the details of the platform where Trump would be speaking. Wray said that a thorough search indicated that Crooks had never been on the FBI's radar in any capacity, nor had he been suspected of any local crimes by other law enforcement agencies. In terms of a criminal background check, Thomas Crooks was a ghost.

We may never have a definitive answer as to Crooks' true motivation, but we appear to be getting closer. From the beginning of this saga, I was almost positive that there had to be some other angle to it and very likely a conspiracy. Perhaps he was part of a politically motivated liberal hate group. He could have even been working at the behest of the Iranians, who very much would like to see Trump eliminated. But it now seems increasingly likely that this situation was entirely different. Keep in mind that Crooks was searching Joe Biden's schedule at the same time he was researching Trump's along with famous assassins of the past. 

If some vicious gangbanger in Chicago murders a bunch of people during robberies and we manage to either catch him or kill him, nobody is going to remember his name for more than a few days. But the entire world still knows Lee Harvey Oswald's name more than 60 years later. Nearly as many know the name of John Hinkley Jr. If you shoot a President you become instantly famous or, more correctly infamous. Thomas Crooks was a lonely, isolated, and likely psychotic young man with few friends. Perhaps this really was nothing more than a young psychopath who desperately wanted to be recognized and remembered, so he decided to kill a president to achieve that goal. Any president. And Donald Trump was unlucky enough to draw the short straw.