WASHINGTON: The gunman who tried to assassinate Donald Trump at a campaign rally searched online for details about the November 1963 shooting of US President John F. Kennedy in the days before the attack, the FBI chief said on Wednesday.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, testifying before a congressional committee, said the gunman flew a drone over the site where the former president was to speak about two hours before he took the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Wray told members of the House Judiciary Committee that investigators have not determined a motive for the shooting but “we are digging hard because this is one of the central questions for us.”
Trump survived the assassination attempt, suffering a wound to his right ear, and a Secret Service sniper shot and killed the suspected gunman — identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks — less than 30 seconds after he fired eight shots.
“In the case of former President Trump, there's a question as to whether it's a bullet or shrapnel that, you know, that hit his ear,” FBI Director Wray said.
Two rally participants were seriously injured and a 50-year-old Pennsylvania firefighter was shot dead.
Wray said Crooks “appears to have done a lot of searches on public figures in general”, but there was no clear pattern to the research.
“Many of the usual repositories of information have yielded nothing remarkable in terms of motive or ideology,” he said.
“Starting on July 6th or so, he became very focused on former President Trump and this rally,” the FBI director said, and he registered the same day to attend the campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“On July 6, he did a Google search for, quote, 'How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?'” he said, a reference to Kennedy's assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald.
“It's obviously important given his state of mind.”
The FBI director said no evidence has emerged so far that Crooks had any accomplices or co-conspirators and that he appears to have been a “lone wolf.”
Crooks was perched on the roof of a nearby building and opened fire on Trump with an AR-style assault rifle just after 6 p.m., as the Republican White House candidate addressed the rally in Butler.
US intelligence director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday, a day after admitting the agency had failed in its mission to prevent the assassination attempt.
Wray said Crooks flew a drone over the rally grounds for about 11 minutes — sometime between 3:50 p.m. and 4 p.m. — on the day of the attack.
He said it was not flown directly over the stage but about 200 yards (meters) away.
The drone and its controller were found in the gunman's car along with two “relatively crude” explosive devices, Wray said.
Another explosive device was found in Crook's residence.
Wray said the gunman bought a ladder on the day of the shooting but did not appear to have used it. Instead, he climbed onto the roof using some mechanical equipment on the ground and vertical pipes.
Wray also said Crook's AR-style pistol had a collapsible stock, which may explain why he was not seen by rally-goers or members of law enforcement with the weapon before the shooting.
He said Crooks visited the rally site on at least three occasions: about a week before the shooting, for about 70 minutes on the morning of the rally and again that afternoon.
He bought 50 rounds of ammunition the day of the attack and visited a shooting range the day before.
