Trump Assassination Attempt Update!
FBI Reveals Warnings about Suspicious Person at Trump Shooting in Butler
Judicial Watch Senior Attorney T. Russell Nobile Testified on Election Integrity
Judicial Watch Asks Supreme Court to Block Counting of Late Ballots
Judicial Watch Sues over Cross-Border Trucking and Illegal Drivers
‘America’s Most Unwanted:’ Atrocious Criminal Aliens Arriving Under Biden
FBI Reveals Warnings about Suspicious Person at Trump Shooting in Butler
We have received the first records that the FBI has released in our lawsuit about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
These documents raise troubling new questions about the Secret Service failures to protect President Trump. And it shouldn’t have taken years and a federal lawsuit to get this basic FBI material about the near assassination of President Trump.
We forced the release of the 37 heavily redacted pages from the FBI through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit revealing that law enforcement personnel broadcast radio warnings about an “unknown male acting suspiciously” prior to the attempted assassination of then-candidate Donald Trump at a July 13, 2024, rally in Butler, PA.
We filed the July 2025 lawsuit after the FBI failed to respond to a July 2024 FOIA request (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-02216)). We asked for:
All records, including but not limited to, investigative reports, interview summaries (Forms 1023), letterhead memoranda, photos, audio/visual recordings, database inquiries, interagency communications, and any other records, whether contained in the Central Records System or cross-referenced files, related to Thomas Matthew Crooks, born September 20, 2003 in Butler Township, PA and died on July 13, 2024, who attempted the assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13, 2024.
All records of communication in any form, including but not limited to emails, text messages, encrypted app communications and voice recordings, between FBI officials and/or FBI sources, contractors, and assets on the one hand, and Thomas Matthew Crooks on the other hand.
The records include a July 16, 2024, “FD-302” investigative report that states that on the day of the shooting:
Prior to the start of the shooting, [Redacted] received reports over the radio about an unknown male acting suspiciously. The unknown male had bags and was wearing a gray T-shirt with “Demolition Ranch” written on the front of it. One report included the unknown male looking at a law enforcement sniper position. Several operators were communicating information about the unknown male back and forth over the radio–including to/from Command, to the Secret Service, to PSP [PA State Police], to “everybody.”
A July 15 electronic communication titled “Opening EC for Investigation of Thomas Matthew Crooks” that launched the FBI investigation of Thomas Crooks notes that one purpose of the investigation, given that Crooks himself was killed by Secret Service agents, was to determine “the subject’s motivation and to identify if there were any co-conspirators.”
A July 14 investigative report describes an event before the shooting. An unidentified acquaintance of Thomas Crooks and his family indicated that sometime between May and June 2024 Crooks “was dehydrated and needed to be taken to the hospital.” It continued, “[Redacted] stated that she thought it was strange that [redacted] did not take him to the hospital themselves.”
A July 16 electronic communication states that the FBI returned a flip phone seized as evidence in their investigation of Crooks: “Lead is fully covered.”
A July 16 report notes that a person who was apparently a neighbor, described the Crooks family as “normal, nice people” and that Crooks “seemed like a normal dorky kid.”
A July 16 electronic communication details that, acting on a tip, the FBI found a “concerning” Facebook post regarding Crooks’ attempted assassination of Trump:
Facebook “Damn, bad shot. Would have done the world a service” and another comment on the original post “We should have watched his ficking brains blown away.” The tipster also provided the Facebook page that posted this was [redacted].
A July 16 electronic communication indicates that a business card was located at the crime scene of Trump’s attempted assassination, and the person associated with it was investigated, although nothing derogatory about that individual was identified in law enforcement records. An interview of that individual was recommended.
A July 16 interview report states that investigators talked with an individual who had attended the Butler rally:
[Redacted] recalled that approximately 5 minutes after the shots were fired, a light silver Subaru Hatchback sped past her and almost struck her. [Redacted] didn’t remember the vehicle having any stickers or distinct markings. [Redacted] didn’t get a look at the license plate, but believed the driver to be an older white male with short hair and tan skin. [Redacted] saw the Subaru in the parking lot near houses, specifically a brown house with a pool. The vehicle departed the parking lot making a sharp right turn near the old buildings.
[Redacted] was with [redacted] in the parking lot and observed the vehicle too. [Redacted] described the vehicle as a 2017 silver Subaru Forester…. [Redacted] noted the terrain was too rough to drive at the rate of speed the Subaru was doing. [Redacted] thought the incident with the vehicle occurred maybe 10 minutes after the shooting.
A July 16 interview report details the observations of a member of the Saxonburg Police Department who was also a member of the Butler Emergency Services Unit:
[Redacted] was on the counter assault team. His position was in the turret inside the armor vehicle next to the barns behind the stage. [Redacted] stated sniper teams called out and sent photos of a suspicious person with a range finder. [Redacted] stated he watched a guy fitting the description walking from the water tower to the stage area and out of view. He did not see anything on the individual.
[Redacted] stated prior to anything happening he saw four people, one child walking away from the AGR [American Glass Research] building towards the houses then two units took off in the direction of where the shooter was later found. A call came out over the radio of a long gun on the roof. Shortly after shots started going off. [Redacted] rode in the armor behind the tents near the stage, but did not ever have a view of the roof where the shooter was. [Redacted] ran out of the armor vehicle with a ladder to AGR and was told they didn’t need any more guys on the roof. So he came back and held security for a medic working on the deceased individual. The Secret Service then took over the tent.
In a July 16 interview summary of an individual who had attended the Butler rally:
[S]he noticed a white male with dark hair interacting with a uniformed law enforcement officer. They both were seen looking at two open windows of the property/building adjacent to the AGR Building. The white male told the officer that those windows were not supposed to be open. [Redacted] saw the windows that appeared to be opened from the inside. As the officer walked around towards the other side of the building, the white male stood on the side where the windows were facing towards the event/stage.
Shortly thereafter, at approximately some time after 6PM, she heard another white male yell the following, “He’s got a gun, everybody run!” This white male appeared to be in his late [redacted] who was seen wearing a white shirt, who had dark colored hair and a [redacted]. She remembered seeing a “panicked” look on his face. After he yelled, [redacted] heard six gunshots that sounded like they came from the two open windows. She took [redacted] and ran towards the vehicle along with many others from the crowd. She lost [redacted] in the crowd but continued running towards the vehicle with [redacted] and another white male who helped with getting [redacted] to the vehicle. She eventually located [redacted] with the help of the same male.
She recalled seeing the law enforcement officer wearing a brown/tan uniform but she did not see the patch.
When she returned to the vehicle, she recalled seeing the Suburban still parked behind her with no occupants inside. She departed the scene shortly thereafter.
After reflection, [Redacted] thought the security outside of the fence line was a concern because there was a lot of open access. She did not see anybody screening individuals near or outside the fence line.
[Redacted] told agents that she does not support conspiracy theorist or is one but she wanted to provide this information to investigators just in case it would help with the investigation.
A July 16 interview report details the observations of a member of the Slippery Rock Police Department who was also a member of the Butler Emergency Services Unit:
Once Trump started to move toward the stage, [redacted] and the Bravo squad were prepared to move in the armored vehicle. At that time, a report came in over the radio stating there was a male on one of the roofs ([redacted] was not sure which roof) and that the male had a long gun. Almost immediately after the report came over the radio, [redacted] heard several gunshots. [Redacted] was not sure how many, possibly seven or eight shots. The Bravo squad then responded in the armored vehicle to the grand stand. When they arrived, they exited the armored vehicle and pushed up the grand stand. They were there briefly, attempting to determine what was happening, and then pulled back. At that time, [Redacted] observed a male on the ground with a gun shot wound to his chest. The team then formed a tight perimeter around the medics as they addressed the injured male.
The Secret Service then requested a tactical team to provide security at the Butler Hospital. [Redacted] and three other operators drove the armored vehicle to the hospital and formed a hard perimeter around the outside of the hospital and the helicopter landing pad. [Redacted] stayed there until they “took Donald Trump out.”
In December 2025, we sued the U.S. Secret Service communications records related to Code Pink protesters who disrupted a dinner held by President Donald Trump at a restaurant in Washington, DC, on September 9, 2025 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:25-cv-04408)).
In September 2025, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for messages among top leaders of the Federal Bureau of Investigation referencing social media posts of Special Agent Jeffrey Veltri, head of the Miami Field Office, which is investigating the September 15 assassination attempt against Donald Trump (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:24-cv-02740)).
In March 2025, we sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for records related to security provided for the July 13, 2024, rally in Butler, PA (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:25-cv-00704)).
In August 2024, we uncovered documents from the district attorney’s office in Butler County, PA, detailing the extensive preparation of local police for the rally at which former President Trump was shot. The preparation included sniper teams, counter assault teams and a quick response force.
In August 2024, in response to a separate open records request, we obtained bodycam footage of the July 13 assassination events from the Butler Township Police Department.
In August 2024, we reported that the FBI withheld information on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about its coordination with the U.S. Secret Service regarding the July 13 Butler, PA, rally.
Also in August 2024, following up on reports that the Biden Secret Service denied Trump’s requests for additional Secret Service protection, we filed a FOIA lawsuit for Secret Service and other records regarding potential increased protective services to Trump’s security detail prior to the attempt on his life at his July 13 campaign rally in Butler, PA (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-02495)).
In July 2024, we reported that the United States Secret Service completely denied multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documents about the assassination attempt on former President Trump.
Judicial Watch Senior Attorney T. Russell Nobile Testified on Election Integrity
Russell Nobile, a senior Judicial Watch attorney and election law expert, testified this week before the House Committee on House Administration at a hearing titled: “Make Elections Great Again: How to Restore Trust and Integrity in Federal Elections.”
Watch here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mlv7FYlv-8).
Russ Nobile has litigated in federal and state courts nationwide, as well as the Supreme Court, and has testified before the U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Committees and other congressional committees.
Prior to joining Judicial Watch, Nobile served as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
This week House Republicans advanced the “Make Elections Great Again Act” (H.R. 7300), a sweeping elections overhaul that would mandate photo identification for voting in federal elections and require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. (Similar legislation, the “SAVE” Act, is also pending.)
Nobile’s testimony comes as the Supreme Court is considering a Judicial Watch case to apply federal law to prohibit states from counting mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day.
In January, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of granting standing in a historic case we filed on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors, who were before the court to vindicate their standing to challenge an Illinois law allowing the counting of ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day.
We are a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of our work, we assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii and cleaned up voter rolls across the country, among other achievements.
Federal courts in Oregon, California and Illinois have ruled that our lawsuits against those states may proceed, forcing them to clean their voter rolls.
We announced in May that our work led to the removal of more than five million ineligible names from voter rolls nationwide.
Judicial Watch Asks Supreme Court to Block Counting of Late Ballots
Our lawsuit to require one election day is the most important election integrity case in a generation. The growing trend of states counting late ballots received after Election Day is a flagrant violation of long-standing federal law that not only encourages voter fraud but also severely undermines public confidence in our elections. The Supreme Court of the United States now has a critical opportunity to restore a fundamental guardrail to the election process.
We filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to affirm that federal law makes it illegal for states to count ballots that arrive after Election Day.
Our brief arises in the Supreme Court’s review of a landmark Judicial Watch election integrity case brought on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi. The case seeks to uphold a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which struck down a Mississippi law unconstitutionally allowing election officials to count mail-in ballots received up to five days after Election Day. The suit was later consolidated with a similar challenge brought by the Republican National Committee (RNC), the Mississippi Republican Party, and others against Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson and local election officials (Watson v. Republican National Committee et al. (No. 24-1260)) (Libertarian Party of Mississippi v. Wetzel et al. (No. 1:24-cv-00037)).
The brief, filed on February 9, emphasizes that the ordinary meaning of “election” at the time Congress enacted the statutes includes the full process of voting and the receipt of ballots by officials. Counting post-Election Day ballots is a relatively recent practice without any historic foundation. Allowing ballots to “trickle in” after Election Day creates opportunities for fraud and erodes public confidence.
Our brief points out:
The whole point of the federal Election-Day statutes is to set a single uniform day for the election. Allowing ballots to trickle in days or weeks after Election Day is antithetical to that basic goal. Indeed, a patchwork of state ballot-receipt deadlines replicates the problems Congress was trying to remedy with a single national Election Day. It is entirely implausible to conclude that Congress—when thrice exercising its preemptive power under the Elections and Electors Clauses—left the door open for states to vitiate those statutes by postponing electoral outcomes with post-election ballot-receipt deadlines. Congress certainly did not leave states the power to undo this important federal time regulation by simply declaring all mailboxes to be ballot boxes.
***
Through the federal Election-Day statutes, Congress exercised its constitutional authority to set a uniform time for federal elections to occur. Text, historical practice, precedent, and common sense all demonstrate that those statutes set the deadline by which ballots must be submitted and received. Simply put, the ballot box closes on Election Day, and ballots that are not received until days or weeks after the date specified by Congress arrive after Election Day and should not be counted.
Congress set a uniform national Election Day, meaning the “ballot box closes” on that day.
The public can view the High Court’s oral arguments on Monday, March 23, 2026, here(https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/live.aspx). The stream begins at 10:00 AM ET.
We are a national leader in election integrity and voting rights litigation, with a record of successful lawsuits enforcing constitutional redistricting standards and cleaning voter rolls nationwide.
Judicial Watch’s election law efforts are led by Senior Attorney Robert Popper, who previously served in the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, where he managed voting rights investigations and litigation across dozens of states.
Eric Lee is an attorney at Judicial Watch, where he focuses on enforcing federal and state laws that promote transparency and integrity in the electoral process. Eric graduated with his B.A. from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and received his J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law. He is licensed to practice in California, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and in federal courts in Illinois and Colorado.
Paul D. Clement, James Y. Xi, and Philip Hammersley of Clement and Murphy PLLC are assisting Judicial Watch in this case. Clement, who has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court, is former solicitor general under President George W. Bush from 2005-2008 and is widely regarded as among the top Supreme Court litigators in the country.
Judicial Watch Sues over Cross-Border Trucking and Illegal Drivers
Americans are dying on our highways because of lax oversight of dangerous drivers by the Biden administration. President Trump and his administration are trying to clean this up, but the American people should know the details of this regulatory disaster.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for records on cross-border trucking and the licensing of non-citizens (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Transportation (No. 1:26-cv-00333)).
We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a component of the Transportation Department, failed to respond to two August 2025 FOIA requests.
The first request is for records and correspondence related to:
- Cross-Border Trucking Pilot Program and Follow-Up Data
- Mexican-Domiciled Carriers and Ownership
- Driver Licensing and Expedited Processing
- English Language Proficiency Enforcement
- NAFTA Renegotiation, Guest Workers, and Labor Impacts
- General Safety and Oversight Records
The second request asks for records and communications about the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s tracking of Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) grantees’ Commercial Vehicle Safety Plan (CVSP) goals and performance outcomes.
In April 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order directing the Secretary of Transportation to “rescind guidance that watered down the law requiring English proficiency for commercial drivers” in an effort to ensure that drivers “safely navigate roads, comply with regulations, and communicate effectively with authorities and employers.”
In May 2025, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy signed an order establishing new guidelines “to strengthen English language enforcement for commercial truck operators.” In September Duffy announced “an emergency action further restricting eligibility for a ‘non-domiciled’ commercial learner’s permits and commercial driver’s licenses.” The rule was established in response to a nationwide audit by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and a series of horrific, fatal crashes.
In August 2025, the U.S. Department of State paused all employment visas for commercial truck drivers, which was in keeping with the Transportation Department’s effort to strictly enforce English proficiency standards on truck drivers in the name of safety.
Recently, in a three-day national crackdown, Operation SafeDRIVE reportedly removed “hundreds of truckers found not to be proficient in English … nearly 2,000 unqualified truckers and other drivers from the road.”
‘America’s Most Unwanted:’ Atrocious Criminal Aliens Arriving Under Biden
Whatever the true motives of the open borders crowd, they have admitted an army of murderers, rapists, child sexual predators and drunk drivers. Our Corruption Chronicles blog documents the disturbing details.
Among the throngs of violent criminals that entered the United States illegally under the Biden administration’s catastrophic open border frenzy are terrorists from two Islamic countries in Africa who targeted American Jews, as well as murderers, rapists, child sexual predators and drunk drivers from Latin America. They are undeniably“America’s Most Unwanted,” the fitting title of a disturbing report that profiles dozens of the most atrocious criminals who infiltrated the U.S. during Biden’s four years. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a Washington D.C. nonprofit dedicated to researching immigration issues, released the document this month and calls it a “scathing indictment of irresponsible and reckless anti-borders policies” that clearly shows the harmful impact on citizens and legal immigrants alike. The worst part, FAIR points out, is that the brutal crimes exposed by its probe could have been prevented with secure borders, sufficient interior enforcement and routine cooperation between local law enforcement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Some of the offenders profiled in the report entered the U.S. several times, the FAIR investigation found, highlighting the detrimental impact of porous borders and mass illegal immigration. A record-breaking 7.6 million illegal aliens entered the country under Biden, including hundreds of thousands with serious criminal records and over 1.7 million from nations the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says pose a national security threat to the U.S. Classified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) by the government, the migrants that pose a security threat came from some 26 countries, including Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Syria, Turkey, China, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela. Many SIAs—including some on the U.S. terrorist watchlist—were released inside the country under Biden, risking public safety and national security. Thanks to the Trump administration’s strict border policies, fiscal year 2026, which began in October, commenced with the lowest illegal crossings in history. Additionally, ICE is arresting record numbers of violent offenders throughout the nation, including gang members, rapists, human traffickers, murderers and other serious criminals. In one Texas operation alone, federal authorities arrested over 350 gangbangers with 1,700 criminal convictionswho entered the United States illegally over 1,400 times.
The new FAIR report focuses on 39 of the worst offenders who committed crimes during Biden’s disastrous tenure. The alien criminals have been closely tracked by the nonprofit and are part of its online archive. The perpetrators represent only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to illegal alien crime, FAIR confirms. ICE operations are certainly proving that by apprehending thousands of violent criminals, many with serious convictions in American courts, in cities throughout the U.S. In just a few weeks in January ICE arrested around2,000 dangerous criminal aliens in Minnesota alone, including murderers, pedophiles, rapists and gangbangers, though you would never know it based on mainstream media coverage. During a recent two-week operation in West Virginia, ICE arrested over 650 criminal aliens, including those convicted of child sex abuse, drug possession and endangering the welfare of children. In Florida criminal aliens with murder, aggravated assault and DUI convictions in this country were recently apprehended. The ICE operations continue and the list will only grow.
Alarmingly, Islamic terrorists are among the pack as the FAIR investigation demonstrates. Among them is Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national responsible for a terrorist attack last June in Boulder, Colorado. Soliman used Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower to attack a group participating in a solidarity walk for Israeli hostages. One person died and dozens of others suffered burns and other injuries. Soliman entered the U.S. in August 2022 on a tourist visa, which had expired at the time of the terror attack. Another Islamic terrorist featured in the FAIR report is Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, an illegal alien from Mauritania who in late 2024 shot an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to the synagogue in Chicago while screaming “Allahu Akbar!” Abdallahi entered the U.S. from Mexico near San Diego and was caught by the Border Patrol but released into the country with a court date. The Latin Americans in the FAIR report include the Venezuelan killers of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia and 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston, Texas.
Until next week,
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