New details have emerged about Thomas Crooks, the man who attempted to assassinate then-US President Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential election, with the latest revelations shedding light on the failed assassin’s political and sexual leanings, personal views and other habits.
According to a message According to The New York Post, suspicious reports from Crooks’ secret social media accounts revealed that the 20-year-old had posted threats of political violence and violent art over the years, even drawing inspiration from Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong.
Crooks’ search history also revealed that the failed bomber had a “muscle mom” fetish and repeatedly searched for videos of muscular women and bodybuilders.
He has also used the pronouns they/they in many of his accounts, although it is not yet known if he identifies as transgender.
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From pro-Trump to anti-Trump
The new report cited online evidence of Crooks’ shifting political views over the years, highlighting his transformation from a Trump loyalist to someone who tried to assassinate the future president of the United States.
The NY Post reported that Crooks’ early online presence, when he would have been in high school, was almost entirely dominated by pro-Trump views.
During this phase of Crooks’ life, the failed killer also made violent anti-Semitic comments and racist remarks about Hispanic immigrants.
In one instance, a YouTube account with the full name Crooks commented on a video of Trump being booed during the 2019 World Series, where the now-deceased 20-year-old wrote, “I always believed that being a patriot meant lining up a bunch of socialist Jews (like the ones booing Trump) and shooting their useless AR brains out.”
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In another instance, Crooks wrote in a comment on a 2019 MSNBC clip: “Every single one of the Trump hating Democrats deserves to have their heads chopped off and steaked so the world can see what happens when you screw up America (sic).
In another 2019 comment, Crooks wrote: “I hope for a quick painful death for all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congressmen who deserve nothing this country has given them (sic).
Crooks also reportedly fantasized about emptying an assault rifle into a crowd of political opponents and often quoted Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong – “The only real political power comes from the barrel of a gun.”
However, the 20-year-old’s views on Trump appear to have changed during the Covid-19 pandemic, during which he criticized Trump’s opposition to enacting social distancing norms and banning public gatherings.
In a February 2020 YouTube comment, Crooks reportedly said: “I’m pretty sure people are just racist and Trump is one of them, it doesn’t take the deep state (sic) for that.”
In April of that year, Crooks also reportedly claimed that the Republican president was “too slow and everything he’s doing now should have been done.” He added that “there was no reasonable defense for Trump,” according to the NY Post report.
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Violent art, obsession with weapons
Around the time Crooks’ views on Trump began to change, he began posting violent artwork on social media, the NY Post reported.
Crooks, who reportedly had two possible accounts on DeviantArt, posted violent artwork on the platform.
In June 2023, he posted a photo titled ‘How He Lost an Eye’, which shows a person dressed in black executing another person against a blue-pink background, in colors that match the trans pride flag.
Later that month, Crooks posted another photo of a purple-headed figure being hit with a metal pipe.
The following month, the failed bomber posted another violent piece of artwork, this time depicting a figure holding a rifle after fatally shooting two individuals, one of whom was dressed in blue and pink clothing.
The publication further reported that Crooks’ alleged search history on Google and YouTube revealed that he was obsessed with famous assassinations and violent attacks, searching for John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassin, Jack Ruby, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, among others.
Crooks also reportedly searched for how to make fertilizer bombs and Molotov cocktails, while one of them inquired about an AR-15 “as quickly as possible.”
He also sought information on body armor, high-velocity ammunition for long-range firing, and riot control.
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Hints of what was to come?
In August 2020, Crooks reportedly discussed how to fight the government using “terror-style tactics” on YouTube, writing: “IMO the only way to fight the government is with terrorist-style attacks, sneak a bomb into a base building and detonate it before anyone sees you, track down all the important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to assassinate them”.
The 20-year-old also predicted that such an act of resistance would likely result in the death of the person in question – “Any kind of direct combat is suicidal and even ambushes/surprises are unlikely to end well.”
Crooks was shot and killed by a Secret Service agent as a result of an assassination attempt on Trump for which, his search history revealed, the 20-year-old used an AR-15-style rifle.
During an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, Crooks fired eight shots, hitting Trump’s ear, killing a firefighter and critically injuring two others.
After the incident, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said it found nothing in Crooks’ online history to indicate a motive for an assassination attempt or political ideology.
