Newly released FBI records obtained by Judicial Watch include text messages from Thomas Matthew Crooks — the would-be assassin who wounded President Donald Trump and killed retired firefighter Corey Comperatore — concerning a 3D printer and an exchange of gifts with unidentified contacts.
The bureau announced Friday that it had received 249 pages through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed after the FBI did not respond to a July 2024 request. The Justice Department has indicated the broader investigative file totals roughly 75,000 pages.
Crooks, then 20, fired shots from a rooftop during a July 13, 2024, campaign rally for then-candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. He was shot and killed by law enforcement at the scene after squeezing off multiple shots. The FBI marked certain cellphone communications recovered from his Samsung device as pertinent to the investigation, according to a July 18, 2024, “Samsung Messaging Review” summarized in the records.
One exchange, dated February 9, 2023, and falling within a conversation the FBI noted as running from February 8 to February 10, 2023, with an “unknown contact,” contained several messages. “Woah that looks cool,” the contact wrote in response to a message from Crooks that is fully redacted in the released pages. The contact then asked, “Did you 3D print the parts?” Several hours later Crooks replied, “Yes, except for the fan blades.”
Reporting on the documents states that the two then discussed coursework at separate colleges. The records do not identify the parts or state whether they related to the printer, a firearm, or another object.
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Judicial Watch: New FBI Records Reveal Thomas Crooks’ Phone Messages, Drone Details
Judicial Watch announced that it received 249 pages of new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit… pic.twitter.com/by1qi2c7AI
— Judicial Watch(@JudicialWatch) October 2, 2026
A separate set of messages from Christmas Day 2022, within a conversation the FBI dated from December 12 to December 26, 2022, shows an exchange of gifts with an unidentified person. An incoming text read, “Thanks for the gifts.” Crooks replied, “Your welcome. Thanks as well.” The contents of the gifts are not described.
The same production includes a chat thread, documented in a July 19, 2024, FBI electronic communication, between Crooks and a recipient whose name is redacted. The thread ran from May 21, 2023, to January 3, 2024. Outgoing messages from Crooks consist largely of short words and character strings, listed in the records as: “Hello,” “Hello red,” “Hello red,” “Hdudhdbdbbd,” “7888ejdj,” “Yolo,” “Ddodjjf,” “890,” “Hdjd,” “Djdj,” “red,” “Yup red,” “Hello,” “Jhhhuuh,” “Hhdj,” “Jjjjjjjjjjjj,” “Hello red,” and “Red red …”
Incoming messages in that thread are entirely redacted, so the context is not available in the released pages.
These communications appear alongside earlier investigative material, previously provided to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, in which Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, described his son’s use of a 3D printer. “Using carbon fiber plastic, a dryer and a toaster oven, Thomas did once create a Glock 19,” the elder Crooks told investigators.
He said he fired a single round from the printed firearm and then stopped because he feared the frame would explode, and that he did not allow his son to use it.
The October 2026 release also contains other items the FBI examined, including: 40 images and eight flight logs extracted from a drone used by Crooks, with images taken between February 6 and February 27, 2024, in the Pittsburgh area and one flight logged in Butler on July 13, 2024. Additional details included DHL notifications concerning a shipment from Hong Kong, and text messages consisting of campaign fundraising appeals from then-Senate candidate Raphael Warnock.
The documents do not explain why the cited messages were classified as pertinent, and the identities of the contacts remain redacted.
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