(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Newly released interview transcripts from the House Task Force investigating the Trump assassination attempts reveal intimate new details about alleged shooter Thomas Crooks, including about his sexuality.
The information about Crooks’s life comes from an interview the House Task Force conducted with an ATF agent who searched his parents’ home near midnight on July 13 in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania—about an hour’s car drive from Butler.
According to the interview transcript, the ATF identified Crooks on the AGR rooftop by tracing his rifle, which his father sold to him. Around 10:45 p.m., agents and police officers established covert surveillance on the Crooks household.
Officers reported seeing unmarked vehicles slowing passing by, and at times pulling in and out of the Crooks driveway—something later attributed to news media who’d been leaked Crooks’s identity. At 10:56 p.m., the father, Matthew Crooks, decided to call 911 about his missing son—as Headline USA reported last Friday.
🚨NEW: Alleged Trump shooter Thomas Crooks's father once asked him if he's gay, he told agents when they interviewed him.
I wonder if Thomas identified as an incel. That would seem to be a crucial aspect to this case. pic.twitter.com/5BiaMlZZx3
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) December 18, 2024
Less than an hour later, ATF and Pennsylvania troopers approached the house to conduct a search. Crooks’ father exited the residence, stepped onto the front porch, and asked them: “Is it true? CNN called me and told me that my son shot Trump.”
Five minutes hadn’t passed before ATF agents stumbled upon apparent bomb-making components in Thomas’s bedroom.
“As soon as I broke the threshold of the bedroom door, right at my feet was a .50-caliber ammunition can, a military grade ammunition can, with a white wire coming out of it. Immediately — my training and experience almost immediately, you know, this is a possible IED,” the responding ATF agent told the House Task Force.
“I looked to my left, and in the closet there was a one-gallon clear jug that said nitromethane on it. Again, within seconds, we said, ‘Okay, everyone evacuate the house.’”
Later, the ATF agent and one other investigator interviewed the parents, Matthew and Mary Crooks.
Along with speaking about Crooks’s high intelligence—which has already been extensively documented—Matthew told agents about his social life, or lack thereof.
“He didn’t have any friends. He kept to himself. I mean, I tried to ask any names of close friends, things like that, to try to jog his memory. I mean, no, he didn’t know of any of his friends,” the agent told the House Task Force.
“Did he have any girlfriends? No girlfriends. And I recall his father saying, ‘At one point I asked him if he was gay,’ I believe he said, and his son got defensive. And so he said, ‘No, I don’t know anything about my son,’ basically.”
While Crooks apparently didn’t discuss much with his parents, he did seem comfortable enough to joke with his high school classmates about having a 10-inch member.
Donald Trump's shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks claims he has a 10 inch p*nis in resurfaced video.. ⁉️
via TMZ pic.twitter.com/KdIO13OkAe
— DramaAlert (@DramaAlert) July 15, 2024
The father also said his son liked to argue both sides of a given political issue, and that he didn’t think he was particularly in favor of one party or the other. The ATF agent did not mention Crooks’s mental health issues, which the father later reported to Pennsylvania State Police.
The ATF’s interview ended when the Allegheny County Bomb Squad arrived to clear the house. The FBI later took over the investigation. The ATF agent said his agency conducted an initial interview since they were among the first responders to the Crooks household after identifying Thomas.
Headline USA will continue to report on the House Task Force interview transcripts as this reporter pores over them.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
