FBI Records Reveal Chilling New Info From Assassination Attempt Against Trump
Newly released FBI records provide additional details about Thomas Matthew Crooks’s communications and drone activity before his attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump, while extensive redactions leave key portions of the material unavailable to the public.
Judicial Watch announced that it obtained 249 pages through its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the bureau. The conservative watchdog filed the case in July 2025 after the FBI failed to respond to its request for records concerning Crooks and the July 2024 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Trump was campaigning for president when Crooks opened fire at the rally, wounding him and other attendees before a counter-sniper killed the gunman.
The latest disclosure includes a partially visible phone conversation, a review of messages on a Samsung phone and laboratory findings documenting flights by a drone, according to Breitbart News.
For Judicial Watch, the release underscores both the value of pursuing the records and the continuing obstacles to public scrutiny.
“These latest records reveal more pieces of the puzzle surrounding Thomas Crooks,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.
Fitton urged the FBI to end what he described as a “slow drip of heavily redacted records.” He called for release of the full investigative file, citing renewed urgency following the recent death of James Copenhaver, who was wounded at the rally.
Among the documents is an FBI communication dated July 19, 2024, describing a message exchange between Crooks and an unidentified recipient.
The conversation ran from May 21, 2023, through January 3, 2024, ending months before the assassination attempt. The released version conceals the recipient’s name and blacks out all incoming messages.
Visible outgoing entries include “Hello red,” “Yolo” and “890,” along with brief sequences of apparently random letters.
Those fragments document an exchange but provide little basis for understanding it. With the recipient unidentified and half the conversation withheld, the public cannot determine its subject or whether it had any connection to the attack.
That gap is central to the watchdog’s demand for greater transparency. Redactions leave legitimate questions unanswered, although they do not themselves establish that Crooks had an accomplice.
A separate review dated July 18, 2024, examined messages on a Samsung phone and identified some communications as “pertinent.”
Those entries included campaign solicitations associated with then-Senate candidate Raphael Warnock and DHL shipment notifications from Hong Kong, according to the report.
The presence of campaign solicitations does not establish a relationship with a campaign or explain Crooks’s political motives. The shipment notices likewise do not identify, on their own, what was delivered or whether the contents had any relevance to the shooting.
More concrete information appears in the FBI’s drone analysis, which accounts for much of the newly released material.
A July 19 laboratory report states that investigators recovered 40 images and eight flight logs from the device. Seven flights occurred around Allegheny-West in the Pittsburgh area between February 6 and February 27, 2024.
The eighth took place over Butler on July 13, the day of the assassination attempt.
The analysis also found that the drone had been powered on 15 times.
Those findings provide a documented timeline of the device’s activity, including its operation over Butler on the day Crooks attacked the rally. They add detail to the public record without resolving the broader questions about his preparations and communications.
Judicial Watch also highlighted texts in a companion release under a “January 7 Intel Chain” heading. According to the group, those messages referred to “two CIA bomb techs” assisting at a pipe-bomb scene and “several CIA dog teams on standby.”
The references describe assistance at a scene; they do not establish CIA involvement in planning the Butler attack. Nothing in the reported material supports such a conclusion.
The volume of records still awaiting disclosure remains another point of contention.
Judicial Watch estimates that the complete FBI file contains approximately 75,000 pages. At a production rate of roughly 500 pages per month, the group says obtaining the material could take about 12 years.
That projected timetable raises a substantial accountability question: how long should Americans have to wait to examine releasable records concerning an attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate?
Trump has separately alleged that the attack was a Democratic plot and raised concerns about the case file. The newly disclosed messages do not substantiate that allegation. The FBI has maintained that Crooks acted alone, Breitbart reported.
The records nevertheless give the public additional information that became available only after litigation. A fuller accounting would allow Americans to assess the evidence more meaningfully, while keeping unanswered questions separate from conclusions the documents do not support.