Thomas Matthew Crooks: The Man Who Shot Donald Trump, Republican or Democrat ?

A shadowy area surrounds the 20-year-old who allegedly shot Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13. With no criminal record and fresh out of high school, was he motivated by the tensions of the political campaign??

Saturday July 13, while he was in the middle of a meeting for the presidential election, in the town of Butler in Pennsylvania, the Republican candidate and former presidential candidate. President of the United States, Donald Trump ducks behind his desk after several shots rang out around him and the activists who came there ;élisten. A few seconds later, he gets up, surrounded by others. by members of the Secret Service – the government agency attached to the National Security Department. interior of the United States – with a bloody cheek, he seems to have been killed. touch&eac; &agrav; the ear.

America discovers live on TV. on television that the billionaire and former president of the United States was on television. victim of an assassination attempt. At the same time, a member of the guard approached him. by Donald Trump, posté on a roof &agrav; proximity from the platform where the Republican candidate was speaking, fires a shot in the direction of the man who appears to be the alleged shooter. In the general panic, Donald Trump is evacuated. and the crowd, in shock, discovers the lifeless body of a man post-war. on the roof of a hangar, with an AR-15 type semi-automatic rifle: the assailant is neutralized but a victim is &agrav; deplore as well as several injured people, including Donald Trump.

In the hours following the event, the Federal Police (FBI) identified him as & He was Thomas Matthew Crooks, a young man from Bethel Park, a town in Pennsylvania located near the University of Texas. 70 kilometers south of Butler. Âgé At the age of 20, Thomas Matthew Crooks had completed his career. He graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022 and had no criminal history, according to Pennsylvania public court records.

Évoter Republican or Democrat supporter ?

Among the elements that allowed his identification, Pennsylvania state records show that he had registered as a Republican Party voter. &Agrave At 20, he would have had his first presidential election as an elector on November 5. He also reportedly donated $15 to ActBlue, a political action committee that raises money for the Democratic Party, when he was 17.

The police have for the moment made no link between the assassination attempt and the electoral campaign which pits Joe Biden and Donald Trump but several elected officials have not yet made any connection. Republicans attacked President Biden. On X, Mike Collins considers that the Democratic president's way of portraying Donald Trump as a fascist is not innocuous: "Joe Biden gaveé orders", he wrote. As for Senator J.D.Vance, tipped for the post of Vice-President in the event of victory for the resident camp" A publican, he also wrote this comment: “This is not today a simple isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped. all prices. This rhetoric led directly to the attempted assassination of President Trump.

A semi-automatic and explosives

According to Kevin Rojek, the agent from the Pittsburgh office, who is leading the investigation for the federal police , the weapon used by Thomas Matthew Crooks belonged to his father, it was an AR-15 type semi-automatic rifle that he had bought for his father. legally. Investigators do not yet know if he was killed. given by his father, or if he took it without informing him. Outside of his school career, we know that Thomas Matthew Crooks & He was a member of the Clairton Sportsmen's Club, a shooting club not far from his home. Sunday evening, the club declared “fully condemn the gratuitous act of violence that occurred yesterday. 

In the car, and at the young man's home, explosives were also set off. discoveries reports CNN. Bobby Wells, responsible for security nationally at the FBI declared  that: "We are investigating this assassination attempt but also consider it "a potential act of domestic terrorism". The alleged shooter's rifle, explosives and phone have since been é sent to the FBI laboratory.