Nearly a year has passed since 20-year-old Thomas Crooks opened fire on then-candidate and now-President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — and new details are only now surfacing that should send a chill down the spine of every American.

According to a recent CBS News report, the would-be assassin wasn’t just harboring violent intentions — he may have been laying the groundwork for an even deadlier attack involving explosives capable of taking down entire buildings.

The CBS piece, curiously titled “Trump shooter Thomas Crooks’ emails reveal a student dreaming of a bright future. And contemplating a violent attack,” appears more concerned with portraying Crooks as an introspective college student than confronting the chilling implications of what he was planning.

Yes, Crooks was applying to transfer from community college to a four-year engineering program. Yes, he had friends read over his personal statement. But as CBS itself eventually notes: “He was also designing a bomb.”

That’s not a minor detail.

Buried in the report is the disturbing revelation that Crooks ordered more than two gallons of nitromethane, a highly volatile fuel often used in high-powered explosives. The purchase was made through an encrypted email and routed via a specialty fuel company called Hyperfuels.

When his shipment was delayed, Crooks followed up. On January 31, 2024, he sent a message that read:
“Hello, my name is Thomas. I placed an order on your website on January 19. I have not received any updates of the order shipping out yet and I was wondering if you still have it and when I can expect it to come.”

Crooks made a rare operational error by using his community college email for the inquiry — a mistake that ultimately gave investigators a glimpse into what might have been a far more catastrophic plan than what unfolded at that Pennsylvania rally.

As CBS explained:
“Crooks used his community college email account to inquire about shipping, one of the few operational missteps that has allowed for a rare look into the dark side of this ambitious young student.”

Hyperfuels confirmed last year that it was “aware of the whole situation,” but offered no further comment.

Instead of focusing on this deeply unsettling attempt to acquire bomb-making materials, CBS chose to highlight Crooks’ SAT score (a 1530), his grammar mistakes, his favorite season (fall), and his musings on the “changing color of the leaves.” All of this reads more like a college admissions profile than a serious investigation into an attempted political assassination.

Let’s be clear: two gallons of nitromethane in the wrong hands is no joke. According to estimates reported by The Western Journal, a small device utilizing that amount could create a lethal blast radius of up to 30 feet. And when paired with roughly 400 pounds of ammonium nitrate — a common fertilizer also used in the Oklahoma City bombing — such a concoction could level a small building.

That potential, combined with Crooks’ apparent intelligence and planning capabilities, raises serious questions: Was he acting alone? Did law enforcement investigate his contacts? Are there more details about this plot we haven’t been told?

Attorney Wally Zimolong wants answers. He represents America First Legal, the nonprofit led by now-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and has pursued Crooks’ records through legal channels.

“I think it raises a lot of important questions. Were they investigating anyone else? Are they still investigating?” Zimolong asked. “A year later we still don’t know enough.”

Indeed, we don’t. What we do know is that the corporate media has treated this near-assassination with a level of indifference that is both baffling and unacceptable.

This was the most serious attempt on the life of a U.S. president or major presidential candidate since the 1981 attempt on Ronald Reagan. Forty-three years passed between such incidents — yet the coverage, security failures, and broader context have been mostly buried.

Instead of pressing federal agencies for transparency, CBS News seemed content to document Crooks’ poetic affection for fall:
“He waxed poetic about the fall weather and asked, ‘who doesn’t love the changing color of the leaves?’”

The American people deserve better. This isn’t about foliage or GPA. This is about an assassination attempt on the President of the United States — one that could have been far more devastating if Crooks had succeeded in acquiring and deploying the bomb materials he sought.

The network that once prided itself on hard-hitting investigative journalism — the home of Edward R. Murrow, William Shirer, and Walter Cronkite — now appears more interested in crafting psychological profiles of a would-be killer than holding institutions accountable.

Where is the Dan Rather-style fire? Where is the relentless pursuit of truth?

Because while CBS ponders Crooks’ SAT grammar mistakes, Americans are left asking a far more urgent question: Where did that nitromethane go, and what else aren’t we being told?