Gab CEO says Trump shooter Thomas Crooks had account on alt-right platform showing 'support' for Biden

Trigger Warning: This article contains some graphic information and content that may trigger some readers. Discretion is advised.

WASHINGTON, DC: The 20-year-old gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump during a Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday, July 13, appears to have used the contentious alt-right social media platform Gab to disseminate messages "in support of President Biden," as per the platform's founder.

Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab, revealed that he was notified on Wednesday about the possibility of Thomas Matthew Crooks having an account on their platform, following an "emergency disclosure request" from a law enforcement agency.

The account @epicmicrowave — which Torba mentioned he has been "unable to confirm" as being associated with Crooks — “posted on the site a total of nine times,” according to Torba’s tweet just 30 minutes after receiving the law enforcement request.

“While the account made very few posts on the site, the majority of them were in support of President Biden,” said the CEO of the platform, which was founded in 2016 as an unrestricted free-speech alternative to Twitter.

“A number of posts in particular expressed support for President Biden’s Covid lockdowns, border policies and executive orders,” Torba added. 

What did Gab CEO Andrew Torba share about the likely Thomas Crooks account on his platform?

Andrew Torba released images of supportive comments for President Joe Biden from the mentioned social media account, with the handle obscured.

In a February 2021 post, the user criticized someone who shared an election forecast, remarking, "Didn't you also predict a landslide loss for Biden? I wouldn't be too confident in your election predictions."

In another thread, the user defended President Biden's border policies by citing a study that compared crime rates among undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and American citizens in Texas.

“Biden executive orders don’t incentivize human trafficking as human traffickers aren’t interested in citizenships, likewise the majority of illegal immigrants are not criminals and in fact, some studies (such as the one linked below) show lower rates of crime committed by these individuals,” the user asserted.

“It is also unclear if the extensive path to citizenship is in fact effective at routing out potential bad actors hence why there is a review of that system,” the user claimed.

Torba stated that he was “disclosing this information at significant personal and business risk.”

“If the past is any guide, defying the DC consensus by publishing the first definitive evidence that the shooter was a Biden supporter — something Democrats and their media allies have tried to cover up and deny at every turn — has a high probability of resulting in significant political and media backlash,” he noted.

“We have saved the account data pending receipt of a search warrant,” the Gab CEO added.

Thomas Crooks used an AR-15 rifle to shoot at former President Donald Trump during his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.

The 78-year-old ex-president was grazed in the right ear by a firing bullet, and a rally attendee was killed before Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.

Authorities have yet to disclose the motive behind the attack, which has sparked bipartisan criticism of the United States Secret Service for its failures in safeguarding the 2024 Republican presidential candidate.

Founded in 2016, Gab drew a significant number of marginalized voices, especially those linked to the alt-right who encountered censorship on other platforms such as Twitter (now X).

In 2018, Gab was temporarily taken offline after it was discovered that Robert Bowers, the perpetrator of the antisemitic mass shooting that resulted in 11 deaths at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, had used the platform.

Even then, Torba stressed the significance of his platform's dedication to free speech.

According to Torba, “The answer to bad speech or hate speech — however you want to define that — is always more speech, and it always will be," as he stated at that time.

Since then, the platform has faced numerous controversies, including being used by individuals involved in the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, as noted by the CEO in his Wednesday post about Crooks.

“In the past, we have been the target of politically motivated inquiries from both the House Oversight Committee and the Joint Committee on the January 6th Attacks, both of which sought to interfere with our mission of protecting free speech online,” Torba claimed.