Thomas Crooks came within a quarter-inch of killing Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Sixteen months later, Americans still don't have answers about how the Secret Service and FBI let it happen.
And the Secret Service got caught hiding this sick truth about Trump’s shooter.
The Pattern Law Enforcement Won't Touch
New York Post columnist Miranda Devine just exposed what looks less like incompetence and more like a deliberate cover-up.
An anonymous source used basic investigative tools to uncover Thomas Crooks' massive online presence that the FBI swore didn't exist.
Starting with Crooks' phone number, the source tracked down 17 accounts revealing his evolution from rabid Trump supporter to violent Trump assassin.
But the most disturbing discovery connects three separate mass violence incidents through a thread federal investigators refuse to acknowledge.
Thomas Crooks used they/them pronouns and had accounts on DeviantArt — one of the largest hubs for "furry" fetish content online.
Tyler Robinson, charged with assassinating Charlie Kirk on September 10, had a transgender roommate who shared his furry obsession.
And Wess Roley, the 20-year-old who ambushed and killed two Idaho firefighters in June, had a TikTok bio proclaiming "my tik is to make fear" alongside references to furries and organ selling.¹
Three mass violence perpetrators. Three connections to the furry subculture. Three incidents where federal authorities downplayed or ignored the pattern.
The FBI wants you to believe these are isolated coincidences.
But when a private investigator can find what the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world claims doesn't exist, something is very wrong.
Crooks Left A Five-Year Digital Trail FBI Claims They Missed
Crooks' YouTube account "Tomcrooks2178" contained 737 public comments spanning ages 15 to 17.
Those posts documented his radicalization in real-time.
In July 2019, Crooks called Trump "the literal definition of Patriotism" and threatened Democrat "Squad" members with violence.
"I hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman who don't deserve anything this country has given them," he wrote.²
"MURDER THE DEMOCRATS," he posted in all caps that December.³
Then came the 180-degree flip.
By January 2020, Crooks was attacking Trump during the first impeachment. Within weeks, he called Trump "racist" and his supporters a brainwashed "cult."⁴
The rhetoric turned increasingly violent through summer 2020.
On August 5, 2020, Crooks wrote: "IMO 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."⁵
Other users flagged his posts and mentioned law enforcement in their replies.
The account stayed active for five more years until being removed the day after the Butler shooting.
Former FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress the bureau "did not have any information about the shooter" before Butler and that Crooks "was not in our holdings."⁶
Rod Swanson knows how the FBI operates.
He's a former senior FBI agent who led Nevada's investigation into the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting. When he heard about Crooks' online threats, he didn't buy the FBI's story.
"No matter how ridiculous the allegation, no matter if it's COVID or not, somebody is going to knock on somebody's door," Swanson explained. "If they investigated that kid there's a record of it and there's an assessment that some leader made that this was not a threat or it rose to a level and they did something else."⁷
The FBI refused to comment on whether Crooks was ever investigated before Butler.
The Furry Connection Nobody Wants To Discuss
Devine's source found two DeviantArt accounts linked to Crooks' primary email under usernames "epicmicrowave" and "theepicmicrowave."
The accounts showed an obsession with cartoon characters featuring muscular male bodies and female heads.⁸
Crooks used they/them pronouns on the platform.
Look at what else investigators found.
Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin Tyler Robinson had a transgender roommate described as his lover who was deeply involved in the furry community.
The roommate's social media was filled with furry content and gender identity posts.
Idaho firefighter killer Wess Roley's TikTok referenced furries alongside his threats about making people fear and selling organs.
His social media showed tactical gear photos and increasingly disturbing content before he set a wildfire to ambush responding firefighters, killing Battalion Chiefs Frank Harwood and John Morrison.⁹
All three attackers were young men in their early twenties.
All three left extensive online footprints documenting radicalization.
All three had connections to furry subculture and gender identity exploration.
And in all three cases, federal law enforcement either missed the warning signs or chose not to act on them.
Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet called the connection between Crooks and Robinson "a five alarm fire" that investigators are ignoring.
The Secret Service Cover-Up Gets Worse
Crooks also had a PayPal account under the name "Rod Swanson" — the exact name of the FBI agent who investigated the Las Vegas shooting.
When contacted, the real Swanson was shocked and said he doesn't even use PayPal.
Crooks had two foreign encrypted email accounts — one German, one Belgian — plus accounts on Snapchat, Venmo, Zelle, Discord, Google Play, Quizlet, and Chess.com.
These are exactly the red flags that should trigger Secret Service monitoring.
But the Secret Service after-action report on Butler remains classified.
Only intelligence committees in Congress can access it, and they've shown zero interest.
Senator Ron Johnson issued a subpoena on the first anniversary of Butler after being "stonewalled" by both agencies in requests for security footage and forensic reports.¹⁰
Questions Trump insiders are asking: How did Crooks' financially struggling parents — who needed money from neighbors for his funeral — afford Quinn Logue, a white-shoe Pittsburgh law firm?
New FBI Director Kash Patel defended the bureau by listing statistics about the investigation.
But stats don't explain why a private investigator found what 480 FBI employees supposedly couldn't.
They don't explain the furry connection across three mass violence incidents.
And they don't explain why Crooks' violent rhetoric went unaddressed when other users were flagging it to law enforcement.
Chris Wray failed after Parkland when the FBI ignored repeated warnings about Nicholas Cruz.
He failed again with Thomas Crooks, Tyler Robinson, and Wess Roley.
The pattern is clear: young men radicalizing online with connections to furry subculture and gender identity confusion, posting violent threats under their real names, getting flagged by other users — and federal law enforcement doing nothing until bodies pile up.
At some point, "incompetence" stops being a believable explanation.
And the American people deserve to know what the Secret Service and FBI are really hiding.
¹ "Alleged Idaho Shooter's TikTok Mentions Fear, Furries, and Organ Selling," HypeFresh, July 19, 2025.
² Miranda Devine, "FBI, Secret Service butchered the Thomas Crooks case and invited conspiracies – we deserve the truth," New York Post, November 17, 2025.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ "Suspect identified in the fatal ambush of 2 firefighters in Idaho," NPR, July 1, 2025.
¹⁰ Devine, New York Post.
