FBI Director Christopher Wray says his agency has "recovered three [explosive] devices, two, in his vehicle and one back in his residence" during the investigation into Trump rally shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks.
"I would say these are relatively... crude devices themselves. But they did have the ability to be detonated remotely," he said.
"In addition to the two devices that we recovered out of his vehicle, there were receivers for those two explosive devices with the devices. And then on the shooter himself, when he was killed by law enforcement, he had a transmitter with him," Wray revealed.
"Now, I do want to add one important point here is that at the moment... it looks like because of the on on/off position on the receivers, that if he had tried to detonate those devices from the roof, it would not have worked," Wray added. "But that doesn't mean the explosives weren't dangerous."
Wray also said: "We have recovered a drone that the shooter appears to have used. It's being exploited and analyzed by the FBI lab. The drone was recovered in his vehicle. So at the time of the shooting the drone was in his vehicle with the controller."
Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that "it appears" Crooks was flying the drone about 200 yards away from the stage area of the Trump rally around 3:50 to 4 p.m. local time on the day of the shooting. Trump was hit with gunfire at 6:11 p.m. as the campaign event was underway.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told House lawmakers Wednesday that there are no signs Thomas Matthew Crooks had any help with the Trump assassination attempt.
"Not at this time, but again, the investigation is ongoing," he said about the matter.
Wray also said the FBI has recovered "eight cartridges on the roof" following the shooting on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, answering a question from Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., about "why doesn't the FBI disclose to the American people all of the investigative detail and evidence that you're gathering as it is gathered?" says his agency is trying to be transparent.
"We have tried to be transparent, with both Congress and the American people as we are going along in the investigation, frankly, unusually so for an ongoing investigation, given the sheer nature, of it," Wray said.
"But part of the issue, is that as like in any investigation, as we proceed, facts evolve, our understanding of what somebody said turns out to have more context that we didn't have before. We have additional leads out there," he continued.
"So part of our goal is not just to respect the ongoing investigation process, but also to make sure that we don't prematurely provide information that then, two days later, turns out to be different than what we told people," Wray added.
{{#rendered}}FBI Director Christopher Wray told House lawmakers Wednesday that "I have been saying for some time now that we are living in an elevated threat environment and tragically, the Butler County assassination attempt is another example.
"A particularly heinous and very public one of what I've been talking about," he added.
"But it also reinforces our need at the FBI and our ongoing commitment to stay focused on the threats, on the mission and on the people we do the work with and the people we do the work for," Wray also said. "Every day, all across this country and indeed around the world, the men and women of the FBI are doing just that, working around the clock to counter the threats we face.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said during his opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday that there is a "lot of work to do" regarding the Trump rally shooting investigation and that "no stone" will be left unturned.
"I want to assure you and the American people that the men and women of the FBI will continue to work tirelessly to get to the bottom of what happened," Wray said. "We are bringing all the resources of the FBI to bear both criminal and national security. That is a whole lot of work underway, and still a lot of work to do. And our understanding of what happened and why will continue to evolve. We're going to leave no stone unturned. The shooter may be deceased, but the FBI's investigation is very much ongoing."
Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who has been a critic of former President Trump, said Wednesday that "regardless of my strong feelings about Donald Trump's behavior, I unequivocally and unabashedly condemn with every fiber of my being, the attempt against his life."
"Political violence erodes the very foundations of our nation. It consists of freedom of speech, of peaceful transition, of power. A democratic government at its core," he added. "These cannot exist if political violence is allowed to fester and to go unchecked."
He called the Trump rally shooting "an attack on our democracy."
{{#rendered}}Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, opened the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Trump rally shooting response Wednesday by saying there are a "lot of unanswered questions" regarding the incident.
"There are a lot of unanswered questions about the security failures that day," Jordan said in his opening statement. "Questions about decisions made before the rally. Questions about actions during the rally and questions about statements made after the event concluded."
Jordan called the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13 a "tragedy" that took the life of volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore, adding that "of course, former President Trump, by the grace of God, survived the assassination attempt. "
FBI Director Christopher Wray has arrived Wednesday at the Rayburn House Office Building for a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Trump rally shooting response.
On the way into the hearing room, Wray did not respond to multiple questions asked by Fox News Congressional Correspondent Aishah Hasnie on if he would be cooperative with lawmakers or if his agency has figured out the motive for the assassination attempt against former President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told ‘Fox & Friends’ on Wednesday that he thinks it’s “stunning” that authorities were using text messaging to coordinate their search for Trump rally shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Rubio’s comment comes after Sen. Chuck Grassely, R-Iowa, posted a video on social media Tuesday showing law enforcement on the roof of a building in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Crooks was shot dead by snipers.
"Beaver County sniper seen and sent the pictures out. This is him," one law enforcement officer tells another man, who appears to be a Secret Service agent, on the roof.
“I think it’s stunning, that in an event like this, of the Republican nominee, a former president and someone we know is being targeted by foreign governments for assassination, I think it’s amazing that the way they were communicating with each other was taking pictures on a cell phone and distributing it to some sort of text messaging group,” Rubio said Wednesday.
“This was a massive, systemic failure and we are lucky that the shooter was not some professionally trained assassin,” he added. “If it had been, we would have had a very different, much more tragic outcome.”
Fox News' Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
{{#rendered}}Body camera footage recorded during the aftermath of the assassination attempt on former President Trump showed law enforcement discussing how a sniper "lost sight" of gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Sen. Chuck Grassely, R-Iowa, posted the three-minute video on social media Tuesday. The footage shows authorities on the roof of a building in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Crooks was shot dead by snipers.
"Beaver County sniper seen and sent the pictures out. This is him," one law enforcement officer tells another man, who appears to be a Secret Service agent, on the roof.
"Rifle's right there, obviously," another law enforcement officer says as he points at the weapon.
The first law enforcement officer, whose body camera was recording, said the sniper who spotted Crooks was still in a building nearby, showing where the sniper was located.
"That’s the sniper who sent the original pictures and seen him come from the bike and then set the bag back down and then lost sight of him," the officer said. "He’s the one who sent the pictures out. I don’t know if you got the same ones I did…."
"I think I did, yeah," the man who appears to be a Secret Service agent replied. "He’s got his glasses on…."
The footage was obtained from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit, and Grassley posted it on X. Fox News Digital has blurred the image of the body.
The Secret Service has recently encouraged former President Trump’s campaign to refrain from holding outdoor rallies with large crowds after a shooter nearly assassinated him during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, according to reports.
The Washington Post reported that three people familiar with the matter said Secret Service agents expressed their concerns to Trump campaign advisers after the Butler shooting.
All three people who spoke with the publication spoke on condition of anonymity.
On the advice, the Trump campaign is looking for indoor venues like basketball arenas and large indoor spaces that can hold thousands of people, the sources reportedly said. Trump’s campaign team is also not planning any large outdoor events anytime soon, the Washington Post reported.
EXCLUSIVE: House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is raising concerns about the security of U.S. and world leaders visiting here in the wake of the failed assassination attempt against former President Trump.
"Yeah, I mean, of course," McCaul told Fox News Digital when asked whether security lapses at Trump's Butler, Pennsylvania ,rally made him concerned about the level of security around President Biden as well. "I would say any [leader]… We've got Netanyahu coming down tomorrow. That's a good example."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday as his country continues to be at war in Gaza with the pro-Palestinian terror group Hamas.
Security preparations are already underway on Capitol Hill, with fencing being seen around the perimeter of the U.S. Capitol as early as Tuesday morning.
But nevertheless, the deadly shooting at Trump's rally earlier this month, in which one attendee was killed and two people were critically injured, has spurred concerns and conversations about elected officials' safety. Trump himself was shot in the ear and evacuated by Secret Service agents.
McCaul said of possible tension at Netanyahu's coming address, "I mean, the ingredients are there for it. It's ripe for violence."
He cited the threat of protests by pro-Palestinian demonstrators, some of whom have consistently patrolled the Capitol complex in the wake of Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, confronting pro-Israel lawmakers on both sides. More than 300 protesters were arrested in late October of last year after occupying the Cannon House Office building during a protest.
That same Capitol office building saw a massive protest on Tuesday, just a day before Netanyahu's speech. Protesters occupied the Cannon building rotunda, chantinng and waving banners before dozens were arrested by police, some detained with zipties. Among the banners were messages reading, "Jews say: Stop the genocide."
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Liz Elkind
{{#rendered}}The U.S. Secret Service (USSS) should have "one set of standards," according to Republican Oklahoma Rep. Josh Brecheen.
Brecheen introduced a bill on Tuesday called the Secret Service Readiness Act that aims to create "a uniform fitness standard for Secret Service special agents and uniformed division officers" after the assassination attempt that wounded former President Trump at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
"We believe that there ought to be one set of standards for Secret Service agents. There shouldn't be multiple different ways you can qualify based upon your sex or your political beliefs. If people who are being protected by [the] Secret Service – if they want the opportunity to let those who can't meet full historic standards on their details, let them handle it. Don't force it upon everybody else and potentially make them more vulnerable to an assassination attempt. There should be one set of standards."
Brecheen's comments come after the Oklahoma congressman, along with other bipartisan members of the House Committee on Homeland Security, on Monday visited the site of the rally to get a better idea of how shooter Thomas Crooks was able to open fire on the president from approximately 150 yards.
The assassination attempt and string of security failures or miscommunications that allowed Crooks to get on the roof of a nearby building and fire multiple rounds from an AR-15 at the former president and his rally attendees, killing one and critically wounding two others, has brought a magnifying glass to the Secret Service's recent diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that some experts have criticized as counterintuitive.
The USSS did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Fox News Digital regarding the new bill.
Former USSS Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned Tuesday, was responsible for executing the agency’s integrated mission of "protection and investigations by leading a diverse workforce," according to the USSS agency website. Critics have accused Cheatle of prioritizing "woke" ideologies rooted in DEI instead of only focusing on hiring the best for the agency.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Audrey Conklin
A top House Democrat who took part in a bipartisan walk-through of the Butler Farm Show grounds in Pennsylvania, where former President Trump was nearly assassinated, said law enforcement rank-and-file seem apprehensive to speak publicly about "who’s in charge."
Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., said officers who serve are "great people" and that breakdowns that led to the fatal event earlier this month prove interagency clarity in cooperation is badly lacking.
Correa praised Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris for being forthright during Tuesday’s House Homeland Security Committee hearing on the Trump rally shooting. He added that local officials and law enforcement in the Butler area he met with Monday were equally admirable.
Correa said local agency members approached him during a private congressional walk-through and told him they needed to talk some more about what they saw on the ground.
"A couple of folks there kind of hinted to me that everybody locally is not comfortable going out and giving their opinion," he said. "But one individual said he’s not quite sure who was in charge.
"There was a local supervisor or council member who said that we need to talk some more. You guys (Congress) need to hear more about what happened and what didn't happen. They weren't here [in Washington]. We need to get their opinions and thoughts. Those are the people that were where the rubber meets the road, so to speak," he said.
Correa added that, comparatively speaking, the Secret Service is a small operation of around 3,600 agents, while Paris said the PSP employs about 6,000.
"The local police and state troopers really are force multipliers, and, in this case, there are some things you need to work on to fix the process," Correa said.
He said after the House hearing with Paris and his trip to Northwest Pennsylvania the best thing to do is go "back to the drawing board and really start kicking the tires in terms of guidance and Secret Service and what they do and how they address and work with local public safety agencies."
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Charles Creitz
Last month, Jake Paul said that former President Trump will most likely get his vote, and understandably so. He was rather emotional about the assassination attempt on the former president.
A gunman opened fire on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 during a rally, and a bullet clipped his right ear. Paul thinks it was by the grace of God that it was not worse.
"It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen and probably will ever see. I think there would have been a civil war if something would have hit him. But I think that's like the divine intervention, for sure. I believe that God stepped in and saved him," Paul said on his brother Logan's podcast, "Impaulsive," which Trum
"It's quite literally ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.' And I think that's also probably why God had this exact situation happen - because He saw the path that we were going down with," the YouTuber-turned-boxer added.
"And I'm not even gonna say, like, it's Democrat-Republican, what does it matter? It's the people who are running the government now, the path that they were leading us to was gonna be catastrophic and terrible. And I think God really intervened, like, ‘we need this guy right now. Everyone needs to flip sides. We can't have a close election - we need a landslide. We need this guy to come back in and make America great again.'"p himself appeared on earlier this year.
"We saw the action of God right in front of our eyes," Logan responded.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Ryan Morik
{{#rendered}}Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, told 'Fox & Friends First' that he hopes FBI Director Christopher Wray comes to the House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday with answers and “a plan to make us feel better about what the FBI is doing” in the wake of the Trump assassination attempt.
“We have so many examples of mishandling of investigations, of corruption at the FBI, that my constituents and many of my colleagues as well are very suspect of whatever the FBI comes up with,” said Gooden, who is a member of the committee. “But it is my hope today that Director Wray will be forthcoming, he will answer the questions that we have for him, that he will slightly put our minds at ease if that is possible.”
“It’s frankly appalling and embarrassing as a nation that we have such terrible security for our former and current presidents. I’ve got to believe that we can do better,” Gooden also said.
“I want to know where we are currently, what information they have, what the plan is, what resignations are taking place, who is going to be held accountable, how this is not going to happen again,” Gooden added. “I don’t want any secrets. The American people are tired of tragedies and incidents taking place where we have questions and conspiracy theories for many years to come unanswered.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray is set to testify this morning on Capitol Hill as lawmakers continue to hold hearings on the Trump rally shooting security response.
Wray will appear in front of the House Judiciary Committee for a hearing it says "will examine the FBI’s investigation into the assassination attempt against President Trump and the ongoing politicization of the nation's preeminent law enforcement agency under the direction of FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland."
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her position on Tuesday, a day after she testified in front of the House Oversight Committee. Lawmakers had criticized her responses to the Secret Service's handling of the Trump assassination attempt.
A top House Democrat who took part in a bipartisan walk-through of the Butler Farm Show grounds in Pennsylvania, where former President Trump was nearly assassinated, said law enforcement rank-and-file seem apprehensive to speak publicly about "who’s in charge."
Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., said officers who serve are "great people" and that breakdowns that led to the fatal event earlier this month prove interagency clarity in cooperation is badly lacking.
Correa praised Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris for being forthright during Tuesday’s House Homeland Security Committee hearing on the Trump rally shooting. He added that local officials and law enforcement in the Butler area he met with Monday were equally admirable.
Correa said local agency members approached him during a private congressional walk-through and told him they needed to talk some more about what they saw on the ground.
"A couple of folks there kind of hinted to me that everybody locally is not comfortable going out and giving their opinion," he said. "But one individual said he’s not quite sure who was in charge.
"There was a local supervisor or council member who said that we need to talk some more. You guys (Congress) need to hear more about what happened and what didn't happen," he said.
{{#rendered}}Just over a week after Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, nearly assassinating former President Trump and killing firefighter Corey Comperatore, the 20-year-old's neighbors are grappling with the reality of the "evil' that lurked down the street.
"That's sheer fear. If [Trump] had his head turned, he would've had his brains blown out, and that was manufactured around the corner from my house," said a neighbor who lives about the same distance from the Crooks home that the shooter was from the president when Crooks opened fire.
"There was such evil around the corner," she said Tuesday. "We're always going to have a scar from what happened and how close to us [it was]."
Another woman who regularly runs through the neighborhood said she passed Crooks in their quiet neighborhood several times over the summer. Despite her attempts to "look over and smile and say hello," he would "look up as though nobody had been passing him."
That woman said she was shocked when she heard the news of the shooting just 40 minutes away from her house. Things got even more "surreal" when she realized the perpetrator lived far closer to home than she thought.
"When I first thought about the shooter being in Butler, I thought, 'Wow, that's in my backyard.' It ended up being closer. All of a sudden, it's a neighbor," she said.
New video footage captured by a rally goer shows the assassination attempt on former President Trump before a sniper took out the shooter after he opened fire.
Jon Malis took the footage as he and his family watched the campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, next to the American Glass Research (AGR) building, which Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to scale to a clear line of sight to Trump, who suffered injuries to his ear from the shooting. One spectator was killed and several others were injured in the incident.
Crooks, 20, appeared to fire eight shots before he was killed by sniper fire.
"I noticed about two minutes before the shooting started, the people were starting to say, 'hey, he's climbing up here, he's crawling around, he's doing this, he's doing that," Malis told Fox News. "We just kind of ignored it because we thought it was some person trying to get a better view."
"I want to say three, then maybe five [rounds were heard]," he added. "And then I heard the two counter sniper rounds."
Fox News' Landon Mion and Bryan Llenas contributed to this report.
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