More information continues to be unearthed about the 20 year-old male who attempted to assassinate former president Trump and killed Corey Comperatore at a Pennsylvania rally. Fox News learned that Senators were told in an all-member briefing that gunman Thomas Crooks wrote the following eerie message publicly on a gaming platform called ‘Steam’: “July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds.”
During the investigation, authorities also found that in July, Crooks had made the following searches in his laptop history: ‘Trump’, ‘Biden’, ‘when is DNC convention’, and ‘July 13 Trump rally’.
Thus far investigators have “found no evidence of a particular ideology, which the FBI believes is notable, and nobody in interviews reported Crooks discussing politics” reports Fox News.
Crooks had two cell phones; the primary phone was recovered from the crime scene along with a remote transmitter (detonator), Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich posted on X. The secondary cell phone was found at the home, it had only 27 contacts and the FBI is in the process of tracking down and interviewing those people.
A former classmate of Crooks, Vincent Taormina, told Fox News Digital Tuesday that the gunman had a “general disdain for mainstream politicians across the political aisle.”
“I brought up the fact that I’m Hispanic and, you know, I’m for Trump. And he said, ‘Well, you’re Hispanic, so shouldn’t you hate Trump?'” Taormina stated. “No. He’s great. He was a great president. He called me stupid – or insinuated that I was stupid.”
It happened during a discussion in an English class during the 2016 campaign, he said. Trump, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders were all still in the race.
“He just did not like politicians, especially with the choices that we had,” Taormina said. “He did not like our politicians.” Taormina that Crooks was usually quiet, except on certain topics that he seemed passionate about, including math and politics. And on those issues, he could be “smug [and] arrogant,” he added.
“He would just talk, talk and act like he knew everything, especially politics related, and he would say it in a tone that was like, ‘I’m better than you,’ in a type of way,” he said. He also pushed back on reporting that Crooks was a complete loner. He had a friend group, he said, although it was both small and concerning. “They were definitely the type, and they did, make threats to shoot up our school,” he said.
Although he and other classmates suspected Crooks himself was behind a threat, he said he had no firm proof. But after the threat came in, the future would-be assassin didn’t return to school for a few days.