Attorney-General Todd Blanche said that there is new information on the shooter in the Butler assassination attempt on US President Donald Trump in a press briefing on Tuesday.
“It is new information about the shooter and about his background, about his history and that stuff that we didn’t know before,” Blanche told reporters during a White House press conference, without elaborating.
The attempted assassin, Thomas Crooks, fired eight shots at Trump with a rifle from a nearby rooftop during his speech at a 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, before being killed by a Secret Service sniper.
A few hours prior to the A-G’s statements, Trump lambasted the FBI under the Biden administration in an X/Twitter post for not doing “what they should have with respect to the Lunatic who shot me in Butler, PA. By the time I got into Office, on January 20th, most of the information was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone. New info was just found! Why wasn’t it seen long ago?”
He continued, saying, “This was all a Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election, that failed.”
Trump attacks ex-FBI director Christopher Wray
Trump added that ex-FBI director Christopher Wray, whom Trump appointed in his first term but later grew to hate, “should pay a price” for how the department responded to the assassination attempt “and certainly for the things he said.”
Blanche, who was Trump’s personal lawyer at the time of the assassination attempt, said during the briefing that he was with Trump as the investigation into the shooting was playing out, trying to ascertain what happened.
“His frustration and concern about what the former director was doing is something that is not new,” Blanche said.
The Justice Department and FBI did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Wray could not be reached for comment.
Jonah Davidov contributed to this report.
