Donald Trump has agreed to sit for a victim interview with the FBI, which is investigating this month’s attempted assassination, an agency official said Monday.
Victim interviews are a routine part of criminal investigations, but are voluntary.
“The interview of the former president will be consistent with any other victim interview that we do,” Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, told reporters on a conference call Monday. The FBI wants to “get his perspective on what he observed, just like any other witness to the crime.”
“It is a standard victim interview, like we would do for any other victim of crime under any other circumstances,” Rojek said.
FBI investigators continue to focus their efforts on uncovering the motive of the 20-year-old would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Crooks was “highly intelligent” and had a growing interest in shooting, Rojek said. While officials had already revealed that he searched “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy” before the shooting, Rojek said Monday that he also made searches related to “power plants, mass shooting events, information on improvised explosive devices and the attempted assassination of the Slovakian Prime Minister earlier this year.”
His primary social circle “appears to be limited to his immediate family, as we believe, he had few friends and acquaintances throughout his life,” Rojek said.
“While the FBI investigation may not yet have determined a motive, we believe the subject made significant efforts to conceal his activities,” Rojek said. “Additionally, we believe his actions also show careful planning ahead of the campaign rally.”
Used alias to buy guns and chemicals and encrypted emails
Crooks also used aliases to make firearms-related purchases online.
“Starting in the spring of 2023, the subject made more than 25 different firearms related purchases from online firearms vendor using an alias,” Rojek said.
In the first half of 2024, Crooks also made “six chemical precursor-related purchases online of materials used to create the explosive devices recovered in the subject’s vehicle and home,” Rojek said.
“For those purchases he used aliases,” Rojek added.
Crooks used foreign-based encrypted email accounts to purchase firearm components, chemicals and other explosive components, investigators said Monday.
Bobby Wells, assistant director of the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, said that the bureau had trouble initially gaining access to the accounts because of their encryptions. But since they accessed the accounts, investigators found that the shooter was using the emails primarily to make online purchases.
“We also identified some additional accounts and identifying information, including aliases he was using on these encrypted platforms,” Wells said.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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