(Ken Silva, Headline USA) On Friday, the transparency group Judicial Watch published an explosive press release—claiming to have uncovered an FBI record showing that alleged would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks emailed local law enforcement ahead of his July 13, 2024, attack in Butler, Pennsylvania.
However, the FBI said Sunday that Crooks was e-mailing his community college professors—and not the Butler County Sheriff’s Office, as Judicial Watch had claimed.
This is a CLICK BAIT LIE by @JudicialWatch which is now nothing more than the fake news media!
The unredacted documents are interviews of Thomas Crooks' by COLLEGE INSTRUCTORS, NOT cops, wherein those instructors reference to having emailed Thomas Crooks about COURSE WORK.… https://t.co/iHpI6VJ4GK
— FBI Rapid Response (@FBI_Response) June 7, 2026
To the FBI’s point, the record in question does not reference the Butler County Sheriff’s Office.
The record says: “[Redacted] advised she [redacted] Thomas Crooks (CROOKS) in the [redacted] was an [redacted] therefore [redacted] with CROOKS. [Redacted] advised she did not recognize CROOKS when everything was on the news over the weekend but on Sunday night, a New York Times reporter emailed her asking questions.
“[Redacted] advised she checked her emails and records and only had two email communications from CROOKS and both emails were in regard to [redacted],” the record adds. “[Redacted] advised she did not have any personal interaction with CROOKS [redacted].”
After issuing a denial, the FBI apparently provided a less-redacted version of the memo Judicial Watch obtained via FOIA litigation. The un-redacted sections show that Crooks was indeed emailing a teacher.
NEW: I’ve obtained a less redacted version of the FBI electronic communications flagged by @JudicialWatch on Friday.
The document shows specifically what Crooks was emailing his college professor about: “a math assignment and a math examine.”
I’m told there will be more… pic.twitter.com/uQu5Yflfr3
— Kaelan Deese (@KaelanDC) June 7, 2026
Headline USA has a pending records request with the Butler County Sheriff’s Office to see if it indeed has any emails from Crooks.
Meanwhile, the FBI continues to hold nearly 75,000 unreleased records on the would-be assassin, who died while attacking Trump—killing a firefighter and gravely wounding two other rallygoers in the process.
Indeed, in January the FBI admitted to having 45,000 records responsive to Judicial Watch’s lawsuit. A month later, that number grew to 75,000.
In response to the lawsuit, the FBI has started making monthly disclosures. To date, the bureau has released five productions of a few dozen pages apiece—200 pages in total.
The FBI said in an April 20 status report that it has sent “narrowing proposals” to Judicial Watch since the number of records is so large. It’s unclear whether Judicial Watch is receptive to that proposal. The parties are set to file another status report on June 22.
Many of the pages released so far are highly redacted. Some are being withheld altogether, either because they’re sealed by the court or because the FBI is citing FOIA exemptions—including redactions to hide the identities of FBI informants.
The sealed records may be related to the DOJ’s grand jury investigation, which was intended to find out Crooks’s motive and whether he had help. As part of that investigation, the DOJ subpoenaed Crooks’s internet and financial records. No witnesses were called to the grand jury.
In December, a judge issued an order that allowed the DOJ to provide those records to Congress. But it’s not clear whether the same records would be subject to FOIA disclosure.
Members of Congress have claimed that the FBI is stonewalling them, but FBI Director Kashyap Patel insists that the bureau provided them everything.
“Congress is accusing us of not turning over all of this stuff — but all of this stuff doesn’t exist. It is an empty narrative they’re firing into a vacuum,” Patel told Fox News in November. “The very limited information we have not turned over is respective to victims’ rights. There isn’t some trove of documents that we haven’t sent over there.”
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
