President Trump is calling for former FBI Director Christopher Wray to face consequences for the bureau's investigation of the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, as newly surfaced federal records reveal disturbing details about the gunman's preparation that investigators failed to disclose sooner.
Trump took to Truth Social on Tuesday to accuse the FBI under the Biden administration of mishandling the probe into the shooting that left him wounded, killed rally attendee Corey Comperatore, and injured two others. The president alleged that critical evidence had vanished before he returned to the White House.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that "by the time I got into Office, on January 20th, most of the information was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone." He added: "New info was just found! Why wasn't it seen long ago?"
The statements came as the New York Post reported on federal records provided to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican who has been pressing for answers about the attack. Those records contain new details about would-be assassin Thomas Crooks, his growing fixation on long-distance shooting, his reconnaissance of the rally site, and behavior his own father found alarming in the hours before the attack.
The federal records paint a picture of methodical preparation. Crooks practiced shooting at a local sportsman's club on July 12, 2024, the day before the rally, and conducted reconnaissance of the Butler event site that same day. He had been using the pseudonym "Bob Dole" for online purchases of firearms-related items.
His father, Matthew Crooks, told investigators that Thomas developed an interest in firearms during the COVID-19 pandemic and eventually became knowledgeable about shooting at distances exceeding 100 yards. On the morning of July 13, Matthew Crooks handed his son a Panther Arms A-15 rifle, believing his son was headed to a shooting range.
That account conflicts with what the FBI had previously stated. The bureau's earlier version said the father gave the rifle to his son that afternoon, not that morning, and that the father believed Thomas intended to visit the sportsman's club specifically, not a generic shooting range. The federal records provided to Grassley do not resolve the discrepancy, and no explanation for the conflicting timelines has been offered.
The internal dysfunction on Capitol Hill has made congressional oversight harder to sustain. Republican holdouts have repeatedly stalled House floor action in recent months, slowing the legislative machinery that committees like Grassley's depend on for follow-through.
Perhaps the most unsettling detail in the new records involves the gunman's behavior shortly before the shooting. Matthew Crooks observed his son pacing and talking to himself while cleaning a firearm. The records do not indicate whether the father reported this to anyone at the time or took any action.
Hours later, Thomas Crooks climbed onto a rooftop near the Butler rally and fired eight rounds toward the stage where Trump was speaking. One round struck the president in the ear. Comperatore, a rally attendee, was killed. Two other people were wounded. A Secret Service sniper killed Crooks on the rooftop.
The FBI investigated the attack as an attempted assassination and potential act of domestic terrorism. During the 2024 investigation, the bureau stated it "had not identified any co-conspirators or anyone with advance knowledge of Crooks' attack." The gunman's specific motive has never been publicly established.
Speaker Mike Johnson, who has faced his own challenges holding the House GOP conference together, including canceling two weeks of House votes shortly after pledging to keep working, has not been directly involved in the Senate-side investigation, but the broader Republican frustration with institutional accountability runs through both chambers.
Trump went further than criticizing the pace of the investigation. He characterized the assassination attempt as "a Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election, that failed." He also said Wray "should pay a price for the way he handled this assassination attempt."
Those are extraordinary claims from a sitting president, and they remain unsubstantiated by the federal records reported so far. The FBI's own finding, no co-conspirators, no advance knowledge by anyone else, has not been publicly contradicted by any evidence in the Grassley materials. Trump's allegation that evidence was "missing, altered, corrupted, or gone" when he took office has not been independently verified.
Wray resigned before Trump returned to the White House in January 2025. Trump had originally nominated Wray to lead the FBI during his first term. The relationship between the two deteriorated sharply over the course of Wray's tenure, and the Butler investigation became a focal point of that breakdown.
Meanwhile, the conservative revolt within the House GOP has continued to complicate the party's ability to project unified oversight. Vice President Vance himself pulled out of a House GOP meeting as floor votes stalled earlier this year, underscoring the fractures that have slowed Republican legislative momentum.
For all the new details, the federal records leave significant gaps. No explanation has been given for the conflicting accounts of when and why the father handed over the rifle. The specific items Crooks purchased under the "Bob Dole" pseudonym remain undisclosed. The nature of the federal records themselves, whether they are interview transcripts, investigative summaries, or something else, has not been clarified.
Most critically, the question of motive remains open. The FBI never established why Crooks targeted Trump. The new records describe preparation and behavior but offer no window into intent. That gap has fueled the kind of speculation Trump's Truth Social posts reflect, and it is a gap the bureau has done nothing public to close.
Johnson has struggled with Senate math on key legislation throughout this Congress, and the difficulty of moving major bills has left oversight investigations as one of the few areas where Republicans can demonstrate results. Grassley's work on the Butler records is one of those efforts, but its value depends entirely on whether the answers that emerge are complete.
The identities of the two other people wounded in the attack have not been made public. The Secret Service sniper who killed Crooks has not been named. And the current status of any follow-on investigation under the new administration remains unclear.
Trump's frustration is understandable. A president was shot, a man was killed, and nearly a year later the public still lacks basic answers about how it happened and why. Whether the FBI's failures amount to incompetence or something worse, the result is the same: the people who were supposed to get to the bottom of this didn't, and the man who survived the attack had to wait until he was back in the Oval Office to find out the evidence had gone sideways.
Accountability delayed is accountability denied. The FBI owed the country a complete, transparent accounting of Butler from the start. That it took a Senate chairman prying records loose to surface even these details tells you everything about how seriously the bureau took its obligation to the public.