Day: September 20, 2026

Two years after Thomas Crooks nearly assassinated President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, newly released FBI documents are offering new details about the case, including information that had not previously been public.

The records show Crooks used the alias “Bob Dole” to receive packages. The documents also say an anonymous donor paid for Crooks’ cremation days after the shooting. The files further indicate Crooks was seen with unidentified men at a gun store weeks earlier and met another unknown person at a range the day before the attack.

Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed this week that the newly surfaced details about Crooks’ background and history included information that had not been known before.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told The National News Desk his committee had been seeking information and that it had been “very slow being delivered to the American people.”

“We’ve been waiting for this information. We requested it and it’s been very slow being delivered to the American people,” Comer said. “I think there are still a lot of questions that we have for the FBI.”

READ MORE: https://nbc16.com/news/nation-world/not-normal-oversight-chair-weighs-in-on-trumps-would-be-assassin-cremation-james-comer-epstein-files-fbi-christopher-wray-leon-black
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Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk speaks as Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. president Donald Trump looks on during a rally at the site of the July assassination attempt against Trump, in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 5, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

An Assassination Attempt Becomes a Loyalty Weapon

The Escalation

Donald Trump has moved from blaming Democratic rhetoric for the 2024 attempt on his life to alleging that the shooting itself was a “Democrat Plot.” His stated basis is newly disclosed FBI material about Thomas Crooks and Trump’s claim that evidence was missing, altered, corrupted, or overlooked. The reporting identifies no evidence connecting Democrats to Crooks.

Power Defines the Accusation

This is not merely an aggrieved candidate speculating about an investigation. Trump is president, and Christopher Wray is the former director of the federal agency responsible for investigating the shooting. When Trump says Wray “should pay a price,” the statement carries the weight of executive power.

Help fuel the work. Independent analysis doesn’t fund itself:☕ Buy us a coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/systemicerror)

That distinction matters. Trump can influence federal priorities and turn unsupported suspicion into a test of institutional loyalty. Wray is not being accused of a specified offense in the account; he is being marked for punishment because Trump rejects how the investigation was handled and described.

Suspicion Without a Chain of Agency

A political plot requires political actors, coordination, and evidence connecting them to the act. Trump’s allegation, as reported, supplies none of those things. It leaps from disputed investigative handling to partisan orchestration.

The newly disclosed details concern Crooks’s personal life and apparent fixation on firearms. Those facts may deepen the picture of the shooter, but they do not, on their own, establish Democratic control or involvement. Treating discovery of additional information as proof of a conspiracy is not an argument. It is suspicion converted into accusation by presidential authority.

The Misdirection Is the Point

The article’s framing is too mild when it describes Trump as having “explicitly alleged” a plot after previously blaming Democratic rhetoric. The politically important development is not simply that his language grew stronger. It is that he erased the difference between incendiary speech, investigative failure, and organized assassination.

That collapse redirects attention away from the unanswered factual questions—what the FBI knew, what it missed, and why—and toward an undefined partisan enemy. Because the alleged conspiracy has no identified mechanism in the source, any investigative gap can be repurposed as confirmation: missing information becomes evidence of concealment, while newly found information becomes evidence that concealment failed.

Punishment Before Proof

“Should pay a price” is the operative phrase. Trump is not asking for a transparent accounting tied to named decisions. He is declaring culpability first and leaving the supposed offense elastic.

That is how personal grievance becomes a governing principle. Officials are judged less by demonstrable misconduct than by whether their work validates the leader’s preferred account. Ambiguity becomes useful because it permits punishment without the inconvenience of proving a defined charge.

Conspiracy as Executive Politics

The larger pattern is the conversion of state power into an instrument for ratifying personal narratives. A genuine assassination attempt provides the emotional force. An incomplete public record provides uncertainty. A partisan accusation supplies the enemy. The presidency supplies coercive weight.

The consequence is not merely another false or unsupported claim in the political bloodstream. It is a model of rule in which evidence is subordinate to loyalty, investigative shortcomings are recast as treasonous plots, and public officials are threatened with consequences for failing to turn a president’s grievance into official truth.

Thanks to Raw Story

Source: Trump openly accuses Dems of orchestrating Butler assassination attempt — and vows revenge (https://links.rawstory.com/s/c/7RqJU7qlbzXiFELmuYyfxaPRH2KPiUtVSsDy-I-cDJ5s6mZA5n-cyn0h-XcaK94G060USOto5kCLTKhcGgjE5fzzof8n3K5aiQckv60X1-0JKEKf-rUg0C7ylWVZlFnGKuwWGgujCgy6sxHkzxxqaQHQWMSI8v3kP0AcfMjZdqxncooKQEwOKBG35yXSN01aNZpq43sikefhN6u0M4WULg4xsfIAADgdiuvHz4U5E6-rM8ftOk4v2qNbt-u6fSo65VoS8pGAnCrOTtTR-L3Xbm44PtN4icYMkc20jftjTRvUl9icmxeGvnxdjY_ddvL0wqS85uNDb0IAVy0NXxyhU0vAX_nr3yyw-JhV-Qe9n-Mowf5LY9MP53VzYz-7YZXm_TqMi0alhgpq-WLfzS4aOIQpbZGuBaByPOWASeLicvOjRcQewkI6yNiDHPivq_IbtAX6LSjn2isvHg2uzbuQeMVXpC7-iXwX93peO07RSrynZ5sku85fKBcljNaO_RANoGJ6ajeCRA9EX5ghdSLgXn-jalnX0cCpzQoaxtzoPPLmd8Zr2pREU0sEPYx1-oKksnGb-gmL8xHgQ52vo7quX5SXTQn4wExeKb6MszBEdA5ca0y8xPkpxeA/gf-z0IuhamUYlQ2tIITgIiY2cE-hXL_6/24)

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