The FBI has linked Thomas Matthew Crooks, the would-be assassin of former President Donald Trump, to a social media account purportedly filled with anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
This revelation was made during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday, where U.S. Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate provided updates on the ongoing investigation.
Despite initial reports that investigators had found no threatening posts on Crooks’ social media accounts, Deputy Director Abbate claimed new evidence had surfaced.
“Something just very recently uncovered that I want to share is a social media account which is believed to be associated with this shooter,” Abbate said.
“Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect anti semitic and anti immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature,” he added.
“While the investigative team is still working to verify this account to determine if it did in fact belong to the shooter, we believe it important to share and note it today, particularly given the general absence of other information to date from social media and other sources of information that reflect on the shooter’s potential motive and mindset.
“These are the facts, in part, that the investigation has revealed to date. While the shooter is dead, our work is very much ongoing and urgent,” he concluded.
Torba responded to the FBI’s allegations by releasing what he described as evidence contradicting the agency’s narrative. He claimed that his team discovered posts attributed to Crooks on Gab that painted a different picture of his political affiliations. According to Torba, these posts indicated that Crooks was pro-Biden and supportive of his immigration policies.
It can be recalled that on Wednesday, he announced that his team had discovered evidence suggesting Crooks may have operated an account on Gab under the username “EpicMicrowave.”
Andrew Torba reported on Gab:
Gab learned that Thomas Crooks, the deranged Joe Biden supporter who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump, may have had an account on our platform. We are unable to confirm that the account in question actually belonged to him.
The account was last active on the site in 2021. As far as we are aware, the account did not use the site to send any direct messages. He posted on the site nine (9) times total.
While the account made very few posts on the site, the majority of them were in support of President Biden. A number of posts in particular expressed support for President Biden’s COVID lockdowns, border policies and executive orders.
We have saved the account data pending receipt of a search warrant.
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