Attempted Assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, Who Shot Donald Trump, Was A Registered Republican

Thomas Matthew Crooks has been pictured for the first time after his failed attempt to assassinate former president Donald Trump.

The 20-year-old was on the roof of a manufacturing plant over 130 yards away from Trump’s rally at Butler Farms Show grounds in Pennsylvania on Saturday. He aimed at the former president during his remarks, grazing his upper right ear and killing one attendee.

Crooks was killed by Secret Service snipers immediately after taking fire and was found with an AR-style semi-automatic assault rifle. He was wearing a Demolition Ranch shirt, a promotion for a popular gun YouTube channel.

Crooks grew up in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and was a registered Republican according to state voter status records. On Jan. 20, 2021, he made a single $15 donation to the liberal ActBlue political action committee at 17 years old. He registered to vote as a member of the Republican party upon turning 18 that September.

Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022, receiving a $500 National Math and Science Initiative Star Award that year. A former classmate who confirmed photos of Crooks told the New York Post that the shooter “didn’t seem like really weird or anything. I would have pegged him as a Republican.”

The FBI declared Crooks the “subject involved” in the attempted assassination early Sunday morning. The streets surrounding his house were immediately blocked off by police.

Videos of the attempt on Trump are circulating social media and depict the former president being tackled to the ground by Secret Service agents after being struck by the bullet. Trump quickly rose to his feet and pumped his fist in the air, an image that seems to have characterized the event.

In a statement on his social media platform, Truth Social, the former president said he “knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin.” He also offered condolences to the family of the deceased attendee.

Trump was treated at a Pennsylvania hospital for the injury to his ear before departing on his private plane just after midnight on Sunday morning.

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