Thomas Matthew Crooks’ motivation for attempting to assassinate Donald Trump remains unknown, and Rep. Mike Waltz says he is concerned that a foreign entity or other third party may be involved in the attack.
Waltz told DailyMail.com he doesn’t know how federal authorities can say for sure that Crooks acted alone if they can’t answer other questions, such as why he had encrypted messaging accounts overseas.
The 20-year-old was also able to create multiple explosives with remote detonators, another thing that surprised Waltz and made him wonder if Crooks was working alone.
And as the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) and the Department of Homeland Security conduct their investigations into the massive security breach, Waltz joins 12 other lawmakers on the House task force also investigating the attempted assassination of Trump.
Representative Mike Waltz sits on the House Task Force on the attempted assassination of Donald J. Trump and told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that he is not convinced that shooter Matthew Thomas Crooks was acting alone.
Thomas Matthew Crooks is pictured at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 before opening fire on the crowd and the former president.
“I don’t understand it and I still don’t have any answers that would help me understand how the (Secret) Service and DHS came out so quickly and said – and I think the FBI did too, but I’ll have to check – that he was operating alone,” Waltz said while speaking to DailyMail.com at Trump Tower in Chicago on Wednesday. “How do you know that just days into your investigation?”
“You can’t tell us what his motive was, but can you tell us that he acted alone?” the Florida Republican asked. “You can’t access those encrypted accounts overseas, but can you tell us that he acted alone?”
-So, I still don’t buy it.
Crooks was shot and killed by Secret Service officers after launching an attack on Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
But not before a bullet from his AR-style weapon, legally purchased by his father, grazed the former president’s right ear. And Crooks killed one rally-goer and seriously wounded two others before being eliminated.
The FBI also found explosives in Crooks’ car, which was parked near the protest site. And when they raided his parents’ home, where he lived, they found more bombs.
“I don’t know many 19-year-olds who can make multiple IEDs with a remote detonator on their own,” Waltz told DailyMail.com. “Why hasn’t it been detected if he’s looking on the internet or buying literature on how to do it?”
Crooks, 20, was shot and killed on the spot by the US Secret Service after he killed one rally-goer, seriously injured two other supporters and barely grazed the side of Trump’s ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Trump was shot in the ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. With blood streaming down his face, the former president was escorted off the stage by Secret Service agents.
Waltz said: “The deeper we get into it, the more questions I have.”
He also said he would participate in an FBI briefing later Wednesday, where he expected more questions to be answered, but he did not sound optimistic.
Rep. Waltz says that as federal agencies and congressional committees are investigating the USSS for the assassination attempt, more disturbing details are emerging that make the attack even more sinister.
For example, the revelation that Iran was also planning an attempt to eliminate former President Trump around the same time Crooks carried out his assassination plot.
“It’s what’s actually going on around them that’s so disturbing,” Waltz said.
“And to me, the most disturbing thing is that we have ongoing plots from Iran to eliminate a former president, a leading candidate, and a Pakistani citizen has just been arrested after making an initial payment to hitmen, and it’s barely being covered in the news.”
