Newly released FBI documents expose strange details about Thomas Matthew Crooks's isolated life before the July 2024 Butler, Pennsylvania, rally shooting, including a fake name for packages and an unidentified benefactor who paid to have his body cremated.
Federal investigators interviewed Crooks's parents the day after their 20-year-old son opened fire at a campaign rally for Donald Trump on July 13, 2024, killing one bystander and seriously wounding two others before Secret Service agents shot him dead. The records, compiled by the FBI and turned over to the U.S. Senate, were first reported by the New York Post and reviewed by Fox News Digital. They paint a picture of a young man who drifted through adolescence without close relationships, and whose family says they never saw the violence coming.
Among the most unusual revelations: Crooks had been ordering packages under the alias "Bob Dole," the name of the late Kansas senator and 1996 presidential candidate. His father, Matthew Crooks, told FBI agents the pseudonym originated after his own checking account was hacked and hit with fraudulent gambling charges. To avoid using the compromised account information again, Thomas adopted the Dole name for deliveries. He made a habit of collecting the packages before his father, who worked late, arrived home.
The documents do not specify what Crooks was ordering or whether investigators found the contents significant. That gap matters. A young man using a false identity to receive shipments, then intercepting them before a parent could see, those are the kinds of details that demand follow-up answers the FBI has not yet provided publicly.
Shortly after the shooting, a family attorney informed investigators that Crooks's body had been cremated. The cost was covered by an anonymous donor. The documents do not identify the donor, explain the motive behind the payment, or indicate whether the FBI pursued the donor's identity. It remains one of several open questions surrounding the case.
That an outside party stepped in to pay for the cremation of a man who tried to kill a former president, and that this person's identity apparently remains shielded, is the kind of loose end that erodes public confidence in the investigation. Investigators owe the country a clear answer on who funded that cremation and why.
The broader pattern of withheld information has already drawn legal action. America First Legal filed a lawsuit in September 2024 alleging the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security illegally withheld records related to the Butler shooting, including communications from the day of the attack and documents about Secret Service hiring standards. Gene Hamilton, the group's executive director, said the organization was "committed to obtaining these records so that the American people can see for themselves exactly what senior DHS leadership was prioritizing in its mission."
Matthew Crooks described his son to FBI agents as a straight-A student who scored 1,400 on his first SAT attempt without studying, then topped 1,500 after preparing for a second try. Despite the strong academic record, Thomas feared he might not get into college. He floated the idea of joining the military to work on nuclear submarines, though his father was unsure how serious that ambition was.
Socially, the picture was bleak. Matthew Crooks told investigators his son "never identified anyone as a friend throughout middle school and high school." Thomas socialized with classmates but drew a hard line with his father: they were not his friends. Between his freshman and sophomore years, he became noticeably quieter and struggled to speak with teachers.
Threats against Trump have continued well beyond Butler. Israeli intelligence has since revealed a fresh Iranian assassination plot targeting the president, underscoring the persistent danger he faces from multiple directions.
In the months before the shooting, Matthew Crooks noticed his son talking to himself. He worked in the mental health field, yet told investigators he did not observe other signs of potential mental illness. The documents show Thomas's actions came as a complete surprise to his family. After the shooting, Matthew Crooks took early retirement. Mary Crooks, Thomas's mother, went on leave from work to process what had happened.
The FBI documents add personal detail to a story already defined by institutional failure. A bipartisan House task force concluded in December 2024 that the Butler shooting "was preventable and should not have happened," citing breakdowns in planning, execution, and leadership. The Government Accountability Office found that the Secret Service received threat intelligence ten days before the rally but failed to share it with the personnel developing the site security plan because of siloed communication practices, Just the News reported.
At least six agents were suspended without pay. None were fired. Supervisors who signed off on the flawed security plan received promotions rather than discipline. Senator Ron Johnson has issued subpoenas to the DOJ and FBI for additional evidence, describing them as "friendly" and aimed at prompting transparency.
The Secret Service's record of accountability failures extends beyond Butler. The agency placed three officials on leave amid intensifying Iranian threats against the Trump family, a separate episode that raised further questions about the agency's internal standards.
Meanwhile, the FBI successfully gained access to Crooks's phone and began analyzing its contents as part of the investigation. The bureau acknowledged at the time that the probe was still in its early stages. More than a year later, the motive behind the attack remains officially unknown.
For all the detail in these documents, the alias, the SAT scores, the behavioral shifts, the cremation, the most important question remains unanswered. Why did Thomas Matthew Crooks open fire at a political rally? The FBI has not publicly offered a motive. The phone analysis has not produced a public explanation. The Senate has the records but has not announced conclusions.
Senator Josh Hawley released a whistleblower report detailing security failures at the rally site, including allegations that the rooftop Crooks used as his firing position was left unguarded because of the heat. That a determined 20-year-old with no known accomplices could exploit such a basic lapse speaks to a systemic problem, not a one-off mistake.
Physical threats against Trump have not subsided since Butler. An armed man carrying weapons, body armor, and a fake security badge was arrested at a Trump golf club in California in a separate incident, and Trump himself has publicly stated he is "on every list" when it comes to foreign assassination threats.
The American public deserves a complete accounting, of the motive, of the anonymous cremation donor, of the packages ordered under a dead senator's name, and of the security failures that let a lone gunman get within rifle range of a president. Every month that passes without answers is another month the institutions responsible for protecting this country's leaders ask the public to trust them on faith alone. That trust has to be earned, and so far, it hasn't been.
