News/Commentary

FBI’s Kash Patel counters Tucker Carlson’s troubling report on would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks

November 15, 2025 | | Print Article

FBI Director Kash Patel proffered a seemingly Tucker Carlson-prompted rundown regarding investigative efforts about a would-be assassin of President Donald Trump that left many wanting.

Thanks in part to the considerable reputational damage of the Justice Department under President Joe Biden’s administration, Trump’s return to the White House brought with it the need for attempts at restoration. Friday, one such measure was taken to address what the bureau had uncovered about the deceased would-be assassin from the July 13, 2024, rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, after Carlson alleged a history of violent rhetoric online.

Taking to X hours after the Tucker Carlson Network had released a video titled, “Who Is Thomas Crooks?” Patel sought to assure the public that the employees who now report to him had turned over every stone to determine Thomas Crooks “had limited online and in person interactions …”

“Over 480 FBI employees were involved in the Thomas Crooks investigation,” the director began. “Employees conducted over 1,000 interviews, addressed over 2,000 public tips, analyzed data extracted from 13 seized digital devices, reviewed nearly 500,000 digital files, collected, processed, and synchronized hundreds of hours of video footage, analyzed financial activity from 10 different accounts, and examined data associated with 25 social media or online forum accounts.”

“The FBI’s investigation into Thomas Crooks identified and examined over 20 online accounts, data extracted from over a dozen electronic devices, examination of numerous financial accounts, and over 1,000 interviews and 2000 public tips,” continued Patel. “The investigation, conducted by over 480 FBI employees, revealed Crooks had limited online and in person interactions, planned and conducted the attack alone, and did not leak or share his intent to engage in the attack with anyone.”

Such details ran contrary to the claims from Carlson’s report, which had allegedly been based on access to the decedent’s Google Drive account by which violent comments on YouTube from between 2019 and 2020 were said to have been uncovered.

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As had been reported, Crooks had gone from presenting as a supporter of Trump, described as the “literal definition of Patriotism,” while calling for death for political opponents, until the president’s response to COVID sparked “an amazing transformation.”

Carlson described a “detailed digital trail of violent threats, including calls for assassination and political violence,” and expressed, “Thomas Crooks came within a quarter inch of destroying this country, and yet, a year and a half later, we still know almost nothing about him or why he did it. That’s because, for some reason, the FBI, even the current FBI, doesn’t want us to know.”

Prior to the video drop, which had garnered over 4 million views on X in less than a day, the recently created FBI Rapid Response account had countered Carlson’s tease about the story by posting, “This FBI has never said Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever.”

However, just as reactions had called out the careful language used by the response account, social media’s response to Patel proved the bureau had a long road back to trust, as many questioned a seeming lack of transparency and why it took a prominent commentator’s video to be forthright about the extent of the investigation.

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Kevin Haggerty
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