FBI Director Christopher Wray reveals new details about Trump shooting at House hearing

The Judiciary Committee's oversight hearing convened just after 10 a.m. with an opening statement from Jordan.

The Ohio Republican opened the hearing paying homage to Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who died Friday.

"She was just a pleasant spirit who we all enjoyed," Jordan said.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the committee, also offered remarks remembering Lee.

"We're better for having known her and the American people are better for having her in their corner for all these years," he said.

In his opening statement, Jordan raised questions about the assassination attempt against Trump, including about Secret Service resources for the former president; what took place from the time Crooks, the shooter, was identified on the roof and when Trump was rushed off the stage; and why the former president was allowed to take the stage at the rally when Crooks had already been deemed suspicious by law enforcement.

"We need to know what happened play by play, moment by moment, second by second, the communications that took place during that critical five minutes," Jordan said.

He urged Wray to be transparent with the committee and the country.

"A significant portion of the country has a healthy skepticism" about the FBI's ability to conduct an open and transparent investigation, Jordan said, criticizing the Justice Department under President Biden.

Nadler, the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, delivered his own opening statement by noting that while he disagrees with Trump on nearly every issue, he denounces the shooting at his rally in Pennsylvania.

"I unequivocally and unabashedly condemn with every fiber of my being the attempt against his life," he said. "This was not just an attack on a man, but an attack on our democracy. Political violence erodes the very foundations of our nation."

The New York Democrat listed off recent violence targeting political leaders and said the attempted assassination of Trump should not be a surprise. He went on to accuse Republicans of continuing to use heated rhetoric, even in the wake of the shooting, and criticized his GOP colleagues for remaining silent about those comments.

Nadler apologized to Wray and said instead of supporting the FBI in its work, some Republicans have targeted the bureau and its agents and called for it to be defunded.

"It is despicable, especially from the party that claims to back the blue," he said.

Wray was sworn in and delivered his opening statement, which began with condolences for Lee and the victims of the shooting in Butler, including Corey Comperatore, who was killed at the rally, and Trump, who was injured when a bullet grazed his ear.

"The attempted assassination of the former president was an attack on our democracy and our democratic process and we will not and do not tolerate political violence of any kind, especially a despicable account of this magnitude," Wray said.

The FBI director said that agents are working "tirelessly" to learn what happened at the rally and said the bureau is using all resources, criminal and national security, to do so.

"We're going to leave no stone unturned," he said. "The shooter may be deceased but the FBI's investigation is very much ongoing."

The FBI's investigation into the shooting is ongoing and its assessment of the shooter and his actions continue to evolve, Wray said, but he told lawmakers that he hopes to provide them "with all the information I can, given where we are at this point."

Wray's promise for transparency comes in the wake of former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle's own appearance before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Monday, during which she repeatedly refused to answer questions and cited the FBI's investigation as the reason for her inability to provide lawmakers with information. She resigned Wednesday after lawmakers of both parties expressed frustration with her testimony.

Rep. Dan Bishop, a North Carolina Republican, went first with questions and asked whether Crooks fired eight bullets before he was killed by a Secret Service sniper. Wray confirmed that there were eight cartridges on the roof and later confirmed that Crooks had a drone.

The FBI is still digging into how he was able to fire so many shots, Wray said. When asked why Trump was allowed on stage, Wray reiterated that the FBI's investigation is focused on the shooter and "all things related to his attack."

"Obviously I understand very much the intense interest and focus on the Secret Service's performance, actions, decision-making, etc.," Wray said, but he added that the FBI is looking into the shooter's motives, preparations before the shooting and whether there were any accomplices or co-conspirators.

The FBI director said the bureau has not found any accomplices "at this time," but noted the investigation is ongoing. 

Wray provided details to lawmakers about the drone recovered from Crooks' vehicle, as well as explosive devices found in his vehicle and residence and the shooter's use of encrypted messaging apps on his phone.

On the drone, Wray said the device and a controller were recovered from Crooks' car and are being analyzed by the FBI. He said that the shooter was flying the drone around the area — not over the stage, but roughly 200 yards away — around 3:50 p.m. or 4 p.m. local time on the day of the shooting.

"We think — but we do not know, so this is one of those things that is qualified because of our ongoing review — that he was live-streaming, viewing the footage" for roughly 11 minutes, Wray said.

The FBI director said the bureau recovered a total of three explosive devices, two from Crooks' vehicle and one from his residence. He called the devices "relatively crude" explosives. He said the explosives had receivers that could have allowed them to be detonated remotely. Crooks himself had a transmitter, Wray noted.

"At a moment, it looks like because of the on/off position on the receivers, that if he had tried to detonate those devices from the roof, it would not have worked, but that doesn't mean the explosives weren't dangerous," Wray said.

The FBI director said the FBI was able to get into Crooks' phone, which he said was a "significant technical challenge," and found Crooks was using encrypted messaging applications.

"On this subject, I would say this has unfortunately now become commonplace and it's a challenge" for the FBI and state and local law enforcement, he said.

Wray said the FBI is interviewing law enforcement from the scene of the attack.

Wray pushed back on some Republicans' threats to defund the FBI, calling cuts to its funding "incredibly short-sighted." 

He warned that a decrease in the bureau's funding would harm local law enforcement.

The committee returned from a break just before 11:30 a.m., and California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat, kicked off questioning. She apologized to Wray for vitriol directed at him as a result of conspiracy theories and other claims spread about him online.

Asked by Lofgren about what the FBI found on Crooks' phone, Wray indicated that the bureau is involved in a "legal process" to gain access to other accounts associated with the shooter. The FBI is also still looking at other digital devices.

"We do not yet have a clear picture of his motive," he said.

Wray said that often during an investigation, the FBI will see social media accounts, messages, or a manifesto that may shed light on a motive, but agents haven't seen that yet with Crooks.

"We're not seeing that, but we're digging in hard because this is one of the central questions for us," he said.

Wray said Crooks appears to have done searches of public figures "in general," but through news articles. The photos of public officials that were found on his phone were associated with those articles, he said.

Under questioning from Lofgren, Wray said investigators "located a number of firearms associated with the shooter and his family — I think it was a total of 14 in the house.

"The weapon that he used for the attempted assassination was an AR-style rifle that was purchased legally, that he — it's my understanding — acquired, I think bought, actually from his father, who was the one who originally bought it," Wray said. "Again, legally."

Crooks lived with his parents in nearby Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and his family has cooperated with the investigation.

Wray told Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, that the FBI "did not have any information about the shooter" and "he was not in our holdings before the shooting."

The FBI chief said the bureau ran a search for Crooks through its databases, and he was not found.

Gaetz then pivoted to questions about President Biden's health and whether Wray noticed a cognitive decline during briefings with him.

"All my interactions with the current president have been completely professional," Wray said.

He said his briefings with Mr. Biden have been "uneventful and unremarkable."

Gaetz continued to press Wray on his experience working with Mr. Biden, and the FBI chief said they're interactions have been "completely fine."

"There hasn't been anything of note in the area you're talking about," Wray said.

In an exchange with Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat, Wray confirmed that Crooks bought a ladder before the shooting, which he said was about 5 feet tall.

"But importantly, we did not find the ladder at the scene so it's not clear that he used the ladder to get on top of the roof," he said.

The FBI is still looking into how Crooks got access to the roof, Wray continued.

Wray reiterated that the gunman fired at least eight shots from the rooftop and later revealed to lawmakers that Crooks' AR-style rifle had a collapsible stock.

The FBI chief said that feature "could explain why it might've been less easy for people to observe."

The first people at the rally who saw Crooks with the gun observed him when he was already on the roof he fired from, Wray said, and the FBI hasn't yet found any witnesses who saw him walking around with the gun.

Wray said the collapsible stock is "potentially a very significant feature that might be relevant to that."

Returning to the drone, Wray said investigators were able to reverse-engineer its flight path in the roughly 11 minutes it was in the air two hours before the rally.

"It would have shown the shooter, we think — again, we're still doing more work on this, I really want to qualify what I'm saying, but I'm trying to be transparent and lenient here. We think it would have shown him, kind of, what would have been behind him when he was shooting," Wray said.

"In other words, almost like giving him a rear-view mirror of the scene behind him. Except again, he wasn't flying it overhead while he was later back for the assassination.

"We're still trying to figure out exactly what he saw, because we're having to, in effect — because there's no recording of what he saw during those 11 minutes, our hypothesis at this point, our experts think he would have been live-streaming it," Wray continued. "And so we're trying to in effect say, OK, if this is the flight pattern, given these capabilities of the drone, what would you have seen, what could you have seen in these 11 minutes?"

Wray told lawmakers that the FBI conducted an analysis of a laptop tied to the shooter and found that on July 6, one week before the Butler rally, he conducted a Google search for "how far away was Oswald from Kennedy," a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

"That's a search that obviously is significant in terms of his state of mind," he said.

That same day he registered for Trump's rally in Butler, Wray said.

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The FBI director provided more details about the devices and accounts the bureau gained access to and said the "usual repositories of information have not yet yielded anything notable in terms of motive or ideology."

Still, Wray said Crooks was interested in public figures "more broadly," and starting around July 6, he became "very focused on" Trump and the Butler rally. 

Asked more about the photos of public officials, Wray said images recovered from the shooter's devices are cached images from searches of news articles.

"As far as the pictures that are like that, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of rhyme or reason to it so far, other than these are all prominent public people. But they cover both parties, they cover both U.S. people and even some foreign public officials," he said.

He said that one source of information "doesn't appear to be overly indicative of motive" and clarified that this doesn't appear to be a target list of sorts, but rather cached images from searches of news stories. 

"There's no pattern from that particular piece of information that is overly remarkable so far," Wray said. 

Turning to attempts to influence the 2024 election, Wray told Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, that the FBI has found that the Russian government "continues to want to influence and in various ways interfere with our democracy, with our electoral process."

He said that in the last few weeks, the FBI announced it disrupted a Russian AI-enhanced social media bot farm, which was designed to be an influence operation. Some of the fake profiles from bots purported to be Americans.

"They're still at it," Wray said. "We've seen that in election cycle after election cycle."

He declined to say whether the Russians have a candidate they prefer to win in November and added that such attempts to influence U.S. elections are not limited to Russia, but also Iran in 2020 and, recently, China.

Wray told lawmakers about what they have learned about the shooter and his interactions with others. He said there has not been evidence uncovered by the FBI that Crooks had accomplices or co-conspirators, foreign or domestic. Investigators are "intensely focused" on whether he was in contact with anyone else before the attack, he continued.

"There doesn't appear to be a whole lot of interactions between him, face-to-face or digital, with a lot of people," Wray said. "That doesn't mean there's not any."

The FBI head said that in interviews conducted as part of its probe, Crooks has been described as a "loner." He said "that does kind of fit with what we're seeing" in the shooter's devices. For example, the gunman's list of contacts is very short compared to what the FBI expected.

In response to questions from Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Wisconsin Republican, Wray said he is "increasingly concerned" that terrorists "could seek to exploit vulnerabilities" at the U.S.-Mexico border and other ports of entry to facilitate an attack in the U.S..

"I think that is something we have to be concerned about," he said, adding, "It doesn't take very many foreign terrorists to be a real problem."

Wray later said when it comes to addressing threats of terrorism, the U.S. needs more help from international partners.

During an exchange with Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, Wray was asked whether there have been any FBI agents who have texted or emailed about Trump surviving the attempt on his life in Butler, or editorialized about it.

Wray said there was one instance of an individual, who is not a FBI agent, who "posted something that I consider outrageous and totally inappropriate and unacceptable."

That person was referred to the FBI's Inspection Division, which conducts internal investigations, he said.

In an exchange with Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana that grew heated, the congresswoman indicated that people who were charged as a result of their actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol were "law-abiding citizens that really were just upset with the government."

She then asked Wray about whether the FBI had confidential human sources at the Capitol that day.

"If you are asking if the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources or agents, the answer is no and it's a disservice to our people," Wray said in response to Spartz's questions.

The FBI director grew angry with Spartz's insinuation that the FBI was involved in the attack. He noted there have been 850 defendants who have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the Capitol riot and 180 who have gone to trial.

"They've all had access to defense counsel, discovery, all the things the Constitution and the rules provide them," Wray said. "It's been in front of something like 15 different judges, dozens of juries, and not one has given credence to this notion."

Hundreds of Trump's supporters breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, leading to the evacuation of lawmakers who had gathered to certify the election results. Some of the rioters chanted "Hang Mike Pence," and some of those who breached the Capitol carried guns, stun guns, knives, baseball bats, flagpoles and chemical sprays.

The Justice Department said in a May update about the Jan. 6 attack that 133 people have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious harm to a law enforcement officer.

As part of its investigation, the FBI searched Crooks' home and bedroom, Wray said. Agents also interviewed his parents, who the FBI director described as "cooperative."

He described the gunman as a "fairly avid shooting hobbyist" who belonged to clubs and went to gun ranges. The FBI believes Crooks went to a shooting range on July 12, the day before the attack at Trump's rally, and shot an AR-style rifle, Wray said.

He said that firearm "probably is" what Crooks used at the rally.

Wray also reiterated that the FBI has not identified any accomplices or co-conspirators.

"We're still in early stages but we have not seen anything so far that would suggest to us that he acted with others," he said.

Wray laid out his understanding of when local law enforcement assisting at the rally encountered Crooks on the roof with his firearm.

According to the FBI director, a member of the public spotted the shooter on the roof a "handful of minutes" before he began firing at 6:11 p.m. Wray said it is not clear whether this individual saw Crooks had a gun, but believed his presence was "concerning."

Separately, a local police officer, with the help of another, was able to see onto the roof, where Crooks was in a "prone shooting position." The gunman then turned and faced the officer with his gun, Wray relayed.

"This is all seconds before the shooter took his shots," he said.

Separate from those two instances, local police observed the shooter with a rangefinder "in a way that was odd and suspicious" roughly an hour before the assassination attempt.

Wray said the first time law enforcement saw Crooks with a weapon "was this local officer climbing up on the roof seconds before the shots."

The committee recessed for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress. The hearing will resume after the speech.

The committee reconvened just before 3:30 p.m. for additional testimony from Wray.

Wray was asked about a profile on a gaming platform that purported to be the shooter's. The FBI director said investigators now know it was not actually from Crooks.

"That is a situation where in our effort to give real-time information, since we've provided that information, we have since learned that that 'July 13 premier' profile page on the gaming profile, it turns out it was not the shooter," he said. "It was some other individual as part of some sick joke who after the shooting, created a profile page pretending to be the shooter."

Wray said that individual admitted to the fake profile.

Somebody after July 13 created the profile pretending to be the shooter, he reiterated, "and sent us down a rabbit trail which we've now tied off."

Crooks was a "gamer" and had accounts on different gaming platforms, the FBI director said, though no information has been gleaned from those yet.

Wray also said that while Crooks had one phone, the FBI has identified others he may have used, such as his father's, though not necessarily related to the attack.

"We keep identifying new pieces of equipment, new accounts," he said.

Wray confirmed to lawmakers that Crooks' father purchased the gun used in the attack in 2013 and sold it to his son in October 2023. He also reiterated that the first time a law enforcement officer saw Crooks on the roof was a few minutes before the shooting, though not with a weapon, and the officer started radioing to others.

The FBI chief said they have not found any witnesses who saw Crooks climb up on the roof but were able to discern how he got up there — using mechanical equipment on the ground and piping on the side of the building — based on forensic analysis.

Wray also said Trump's ear was grazed by either a bullet or shrapnel.

"The attempted assassination of a president, current or former, is a historic event," he said.

Wray was asked whether the attack was sophisticated. On one hand, he said, it was executed by a 20-year-old with no criminal history who was believed to be a loner.

"On the other hand, he did clearly do some level of planning or recon," he said. Wray said he did not want to give Crooks credit for being either an amateur or professional.

He also condemned companies behind encryption apps, and said they're a problem for law enforcement, since they can prevent law enforcement from gaining access to communications "no matter how heinous the crime, no matter how rock solid the legal process."

He told lawmakers that he believes Crooks' parents did call police concerned their son was missing, but it was after the attempted assassination. When he last saw his father, the shooter indicated he was going to the gun range, Wray said.

"Of course he didn't go to the range and he didn't come back from that," he said.

Wray indicated that Crooks had purchased 50 rounds of ammunition the day of the shooting at Trump's rally and said that his "preparatory activity" shows that he settled on Trump as the target and the rally "as his moment to take a shot."

But he noted that there is also the issue of the three explosive devices — two in his vehicle and one at his residence — that the gunman had "for some reason."

"What else he may have had in mind is something that I think is very much of an open question," Wray said.

The FBI chief said that sometimes in similar circumstances, investigators will find a manifesto that sheds light on a perpetrator's plans. But no materials like that have been found in this case, he said.

"We'd love to have a roadmap that tells us exactly what he was thinking. We haven't found that yet," he said. "Doesn't mean we won't. We're looking all over the place and we're going to leave no stone unturned."

After some closing questions, most of which Wray said he would follow up with lawmakers with answers, the hearing concluded just before 5 p.m.