FBI ‘missed opportunities’ to stop Trump's would-be assassin in Butler, ex-assistant director says

BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA: The FBI had more than a few “missed opportunities” to stop 20-year-old Thomas Crooks before he tried to attack President Donald Trump, according to a former assistant director of the Bureau.

Just last week, a stash of extremist social media posts believed to be tied to Crooks made waves online, including everything from violent fantasies to a sudden hard turn against Trump after earlier praising him.

According to retired FBI assistant director Chris Swecker, if even “half” of Crooks’ digital footprint turns out to be legitimate, the feds should have been tracking him long before he squeezed a trigger in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“It’s clear that he was popping off on the social media sites and saying things that should have garnered attention,” Chris Swecker told the New York Post. After spending 24 years at the Bureau, he said it "constitutes a miss on the part of the FBI" and gave the investigation “a C- grade.”

Chris Swecker says FBI missed red flags on Crooks

Among Thomas Crooks’s newly surfaced social media posts were YouTube comments such as, “I always believed being patriotic was lining up a bunch of socialist Jews and blasting their useless brains out with an AR.” He also typed “KILL DEMOCRATS” and ranted that members of the “Squad” deserved a “quick, painful death.”

Another comment read, “The only way to fight the gov is with terrorism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building and set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders, etc, and try to assassinate them.”

Swecker, who left the Bureau in 2006, noted there was another problem behind the scenes. He said the FBI under then-director Christopher Wray appeared eager to portray Crooks as a far-right lone actor, even when evidence did not fully support that narrative. According to Swecker, the Bureau “had its thumb on the scales” of the investigation.

That choice opened the floodgates for rumors and conspiracy theories, he warned. “A little bit of transparency goes a long way in these types of investigations,” said Swecker, who once ran the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division from 2004 to 2006.

“There was a bias in the FBI towards right-wing extremists. And if there was a right-wing extremist ideology that got surfaced real quick in any of these shootings. But if there was a left-wing extremist ideology driving it, it was glossed over,” Swecker added, saying that this view was “shared by a lot of my colleagues.”  

Congress presses FBI over Thomas Crooks investigation

When the New York Post asked the FBI for comment, the Bureau pointed only to its recent conclusion that Thomas Crooks acted alone. On Capitol Hill, Reps Mike Kelly (R-Pa) and Pat Fallon (R-Texas) on Wednesday accused former FBI Director Christopher Wray of “stonewalling” the probe.

Swecker pushed back slightly. “To me, what they’re calling stonewalling was really a missed opportunity to be somewhat transparent along the lines of enlisting the public and educating them about what they should be,” he said. Swecker, who also served as the FBI’s on-scene Commander in Iraq, urged new Director Kash Patel to immediately release all files tied to Crooks.

“They ought to come out with the full motivation, that’s not classified, and then let’s get it out there,” he said. “And I think we’ve got to use the opportunity to teach and educate the public about the threats on social media and the internet."

FBI urged to act as online radicalization grows

The retired executive also warned that Thomas Crooks’ online radicalization shows how easily foreign adversaries could turn troubled Americans into violent puppets.

“The scariest thing about The Post’s article was the thought that a hostile foreign intelligence service or an enemy out there could be looking for guys like Crooks and grooming them and weaponizing them,” he said.

“We know ISIS has done that, and they’ve done it effectively. They’ve radicalized people on the internet,” he added. “Why wouldn’t Russia or China or Iran or any of our enemies do just the same thing?”

He said the threat of foreign-fueled radicalization “ups the ante in terms of the FBI not letting stuff like this fall through the cracks.” Swecker emphasized that he does not want a nation of tattletales, but he also urged people not to ignore clear warning signs.

While it’s not about creating “a citizenry full of snitches,” he said, “If you know somebody who says ‘I’m going to kill the president,’ pass that on.”

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