The 20-year-old man suspected of trying to kill former President Donald Trump conducted an online search of the John F. Kennedy assassination on the day he registered for Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Wednesday.
"Analysis of a laptop that the investigation ties to the shooter reveals that on July 6, he did a Google search for -quote - 'how far away was Oswald from Kennedy,'" Wray said in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.
"That is the same day that it appears that he registered for the Butler rally," he said, adding that suspect Thomas Crooks had become "very focused on President Trump and his rally" at the time.
Former President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Wray said Crooks, a nursing home aide, fired at least eight rounds from his rooftop position near the July 13 rally, wounding the Republican presidential candidate in the ear, killing one rally attendee and wounding two others.
Crooks used an AR-15 assault-style rifle with a collapsible stock, "which could explain why it might have been less easy for people to observe," Wray said.
Motive still remains unclear
The motive for the shooting remains unclear. Wray said many people have described Crooks as a loner and the list of contacts in his phone was short.
Wray also told lawmakers that Crooks flew a drone about 200 yards (180 meters) from the stage where Trump spoke to the crowd and live-streamed footage for about 11 minutes, some two hours before the event.
He said the crude explosive devices recovered from Crooks' car and home were designed to be detonated remotely. Crooks had a transmitter with him at the time of the shooting, Wray added. But he said the FBI believes the suspect would not have been successful had he tried to detonate the devices.
The hearing also focused on the increasingly tense political atmosphere surrounding the presidential campaign.
"I have been saying for some time now that we are living in an elevated-threat environment. And tragically, the ... assassination attempt is another example, particularly heinous," Wray testified.
Kimberly Cheatle resigned as director of the US Secret Service on Tuesday after bipartisan demands to quit over the failure to prevent the attempted assassination.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said he expected Wray to answer questions about what happened before, during and after the incident but expressed doubt about the FBI director's answers even before questioning began.
"I'm sure you understand that a significant portion of the country has a healthy skepticism regarding the FBI's ability to conduct a fair, honest, open and transparent investigation," Jordan said.
Representative Jerrold Nadler, the panel's top Democrat, condemned the Trump shooting "unequivocally and unabashedly" but pointed to years of political threats and violence, and violent rhetoric from Republicans including Trump himself.
"If you think that this one assassin's bullet was a bolt out of the blue, and not part of a wave of violence that has threatened this nation for years, then you have missed the point," the New York Democrat said.
Wray has long faced opposition from hardline Republicans, some angered over the arrest of Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress certified President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.