An anonymous donor paid for the cremation of Thomas Crooks, the man who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a July 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to FBI records reviewed by the New York Post.
The detail surfaced in the bureau’s write-up of an interview with Matthew Crooks, the shooter’s father. The document states simply that an “anonymous donor paid for cremation,” offering no further identification of who funded the disposal of the body.
The cremation took place less than two weeks after the shooting, which wounded the then-former president and killed a rally attendee, Corey Comperatore. Trump was left bloodied when a bullet grazed his ear. The attack also critically injured two other supporters in the crowd.
According to the FBI files, neither Matthew Crooks nor his wife was employed at the time of the attack.
A swift cremation and lingering questions
The speed with which the body was released and cremated drew objections from some members of Congress, who argued that evidence was lost before a fuller examination could be completed.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), a member of the bipartisan Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump, laid out his concerns in his findings.
“With the FBI’s approval, and without informing Congress, Crooks’ body was released to a funeral home on July 22 and cremated. This eliminated the possibility of conducting further testing or collecting evidence that remained,” Higgins wrote.
Higgins argued the extraordinary nature of the case demanded that the body be preserved far longer than would be typical in a routine criminal matter.
“Discussion of ballistics evidence is still ongoing more than sixty years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” he said. “In the case of the attempted assassination of President-elect Trump, it is wholly unacceptable that the FBI would not take reasonable steps to preserve all evidence to answer questions that could extend beyond the scope of a criminal probe.”
The FBI at the time said it approved the release of the body after Allegheny County completed its autopsy.
Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, defended the decision, saying it was consistent with standard practice once investigators had finished the work that required them to keep custody of the remains.
“I want to stress that it is not standard procedure or practice for the FBI or any law enforcement agency to request that the coroner or medical examiner maintain indefinite custody of a deceased subject’s body once the investigative purposes of our agency and our partner agencies are completed,” Rojek said.
Details from the family interview
The FBI’s conversation with Matthew Crooks yielded other details about his son that have now entered the public record. According to the files, the younger Crooks used the name of the late Republican Senator Bob Dole when making purchases online. The interview also described him as someone who rarely showed emotion and who developed a fascination with firearms.
The cremation itself has become a recurring point of contention. Critics of the bureau’s handling of the case point to it as one example of why they believe the investigation left holes that a more deliberate process might have filled. The FBI has maintained that its investigative needs were met before the body was turned over to the funeral home.
The House task force examining the assassination attempt has continued to press for a fuller accounting of the security failures that allowed a gunman to climb onto a nearby roof with a clear sightline of the stage. Those failures led to the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, and multiple reviews have faulted communication and planning lapses among the agencies charged with protecting the former president that day.
For now, the identity of the donor who paid to cremate the man responsible for the attack remains unknown publicly, a small but persistent thread in a case that has generated far more questions than answers.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/who-paid-to-cremate-wannabe-trump-assassin-fbi-files-reveal-mysterious-answer