More than two years after a gunman nearly killed President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, the FBI is still releasing fragments of its investigative file.
The latest batch contains the kind of evidence that demands straight answers: a cryptic text exchange with an unidentified contact, a separate conversation about 3D-printed parts, a package notice from Hong Kong and dozens of drone photographs taken around Pittsburgh months before the assassination attempt.
None of those details, by themselves, proves a broader plot. But they do show how much of Thomas Matthew Crooks’ story remains hidden behind redactions and a release schedule that could keep the public waiting for years.
EXCLUSIVE: Judicial Watch obtained records revealing that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the man who shot President Donald Trump at a July 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, used a drone to take photos in and around Pittsburgh in the months leading up to the assassination attempt.… pic.twitter.com/h3QMKTbjz1
— Judicial Watch(@JudicialWatch) October 2, 2026
Judicial Watch says the 249-page production came from its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department. The group reports that the full Crooks investigative file contains roughly 75,000 pages.
At the government’s current pace of about 500 pages a month, Judicial Watch estimates it would take approximately 12 years to receive the entire file.
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in July 2025 after the FBI failed to answer a records request submitted just days after the shooting. The newly released chat thread spans May 2023 through January 2024.
That is an astonishing timeline for an investigation into an attack that wounded a presidential candidate, killed firefighter Corey Comperatore and injured other rallygoers.
The new documents include an FBI electronic communication describing a chat thread between Crooks and a person whose name is redacted. The incoming messages are blacked out.
Crooks’ outgoing side contains a bizarre series of short messages, repeated words and apparently random strings of letters and numbers.
The records do not explain who was on the other end or what the exchange meant.
READ: https://t.co/U0U0Hz47Ql
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 FBI phone review identified several conversations as “pertinent” to the investigation. One exchange, dated February 2023, involved an unknown contact asking Crooks whether he had 3D-printed certain parts.
Fox News reports that Crooks answered that he had printed the parts except for fan blades. The subject of the project is not identified in the released messages, and the records do not establish that the exchange involved a weapon.
The unidentified contact reportedly reacted that the result looked “cool” and asked another question about the parts in response to a Crooks message that the FBI redacted. That missing half of the exchange prevents the public from seeing the full context investigators reviewed.
That qualification matters. The public should not be asked to fill redacted space with speculation.
It should be allowed to see enough of the government’s work to understand what investigators found and ruled out.
The same report says Crooks’ father told agents that his son had once assembled a Glock-style firearm using carbon-fiber plastic and household equipment. His father said he forbade Crooks from firing it because he feared it could explode.
The latest production also contains a DHL notification for a shipment from Hong Kong. Again, the public record released so far does not show what was in that package or whether investigators connected it to the attack.
Fox also reports that the drone images included PNC Park and Acrisure Stadium, home to Pittsburgh’s Major League Baseball and NFL teams. Those images were taken months before the Butler rally.
Then there is the drone.
FBI laboratory analysts extracted 40 images and eight flight logs from Crooks’ device. Seven flights occurred in the Allegheny-West area, and the photographs taken in February 2024 included locations around Pittsburgh.
The eighth documented flight occurred in Butler on July 13, 2024—the day Crooks opened fire.
Just the News reports that the February 2023 exchange began with the unidentified contact asking whether Crooks had 3D-printed “the parts.” Crooks replied that he had printed them except for the fan blades, but the released material does not identify the project.
The conversation then shifted to classes at separate colleges. The outlet also reports that Crooks and the unidentified person were close enough to exchange Christmas gifts in 2022, although the released records do not say what those gifts were.
The report connects that exchange to Crooks’ father’s account of a handgun his son had made with a 3D printer. According to that account, Crooks fired only one round from it because he feared the weapon might explode.
The FBI’s decision to label the conversation “pertinent” makes the missing context more important, not less. The public still cannot tell whether agents fully identified the contact, examined the printed parts or ruled the exchange out as unrelated to the attack.
That does not answer the central questions. It sharpens them.
Who were the redacted contacts? What were the 3D-printed parts?
What came from Hong Kong? Why did Crooks photograph those locations?
Which possibilities did agents eliminate, and on what evidence?
READ: https://t.co/6v2GcEfdvH
Judicial Watch Weekly Update with Tom Fitton
Friday, October 2, 2026
* FBI Records Reveal Thomas Crooks’ Phone Messages, Drone Details
* Judge Orders CIA to Provide Answers on January 6 Records
* Federal Court Unseals Secret FBI Warrant Records… pic.twitter.com/WvyJ87F5UO
— Judicial Watch(@JudicialWatch) October 2, 2026
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton says the FBI should stop the slow drip of heavily redacted records and release the full investigative file.
He is right about the standard that should apply.
This was not a routine criminal case. A presidential candidate turned his head by a fraction of a second and survived.
A husband and father died shielding his family. Other Americans carried wounds from that field for the rest of their lives.
The public is not owed rumors. It is owed the evidence, the investigative conclusions and a clear account of every failure that allowed an armed man onto that roof.
If the FBI has innocent explanations for these messages, contacts and shipments, releasing the relevant context would close off reckless theories. If important questions remain unresolved, Americans deserve to know that too.
Twelve years is not transparency. It is institutional delay stretched beyond any reasonable measure.
The Butler file belongs in the sunlight—without the names of innocent private citizens exposed, but also without redactions so sweeping that the most important facts disappear with them.
The post New FBI Records Reveal Thomas Crooks’ Strange Messages Before Butler Attack appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.
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