The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is accused of missing several “opportunities” to stop Thomas Crooks before his failed assassination attempt.
Retired FBI assistant director Chris Swecker spoke to The New York Post, revealing that the FBI may have dropped the ball on keeping President Donald Trump safe from the would-be assassin.
“If even ‘half’ of Trump’s would-be assassin’s extremist digital footprint turns out to be true, he should have been on the FBI’s radar long before the 20-year-old opened fire on the then-presumptive GOP presidential nominee during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania,” the outlet reported.
“It’s clear that he was popping off on the social media sites and saying things that should have garnered attention,” he said. “That constitutes a miss on the part of the FBI.”
He also noted that the investigation earned a”C- grade” in his estimation.
“I always believed being patriotic was lining up a bunch of socialist Jews and blasting their useless brains out with an AR,” Crooks reportedly said in a YouTube comment. He was also behind such sentiments as “KILL DEMOCRATS” and suggested “Squad” members should have a “quick, painful death.”
“The only way to fight the gov is with terrorism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building and set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to assassinate them,” he reportedly said, which should have absolutely earned the interest of federal investigators.
Swecker accused then-FBI Director Christopher Wray of trying to paint Crooks as a lone-wolf, far-right figure.
“He said it seemed clear to him that when agents found evidence to the contrary, the Bureau “had its thumb on the scales” of the investigation,” The Post reported. “This led to a lack of transparency in the investigation, which allowed conspiracy theories to spread and multiply, he said.”
The former assistant director, who retired in 2006, called for more transparency from agencies like the FBI, claiming that the lack of it gave birth to many conspiracy theories.
“There was a bias in the FBI towards right-wing extremists. And if there was a right-wing extremist ideology, that got surfaced real quick in any of these shootings. But if there was a left-wing extremist ideology driving it, it was glossed over,” he explained, adding that it was a sentiment “shared by a lot of my colleagues” in the FBI, a disturbing admission for the people Americans rely on to carry out their duty and keep people safe.
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Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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