WASHINGTON (AP) — Just hours before opening fire, the gunman in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump flew a drone roughly 200 yards (180 meters) from the rally stage where the Republican former president would later stand, viewing and livestreaming the footage, FBI Director Christopher Wray told congressional lawmakers on Wednesday.
The FBI recovered the drone and a controller from the car of 20-year-old shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks and is analyzing it as agents investigate his background and motive.
Wray’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee represents his most detailed comments to date about the July 13 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, which has thrust the FBI into a political maelstrom, with the bureau probing the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
The details about Crooks' use of a drone just hours before Trump took the stage for the rally add to the questions about the security lapses preceding the event.
Wray pledged to lawmakers that the FBI would “leave no stone unturned” in its investigation of a shooting that he called despicable and horrific.
“I have been saying for some time now that we are living in an elevated threat environment, and tragically the Butler County assassination attempt is another example — a particularly heinous and public one — of what I’ve been talking about,” Wray said.
The hearing had been scheduled well before the July 13 shooting as part of the committee’s routine oversight of the FBI and the Justice Department, and though lawmakers may touch on a broad array of topics, questions about the shooting are expected to dominate the session.
Despite being appointed by Trump, Wray typically faces antagonistic questions from the Republican-led panel, a reflection of lingering discontent over the FBI’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and the 2016 campaign.
That sentiment was made clear early in the hearing when the panel's Republican chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, told Wray: “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.”
Though the FBI has avoided the same level of scrutiny over the shooting directed at the Secret Service over security failures that preceded the shooting, culminating Tuesday in the resignation of Director Kimberly Cheatle, Wray is likely to be questioned by lawmakers skeptical of the bureau’s assessment that Crooks left behind no obvious ideological motive that could explain his actions.
The FBI has said it is investigating the shooting, which killed one rallygoer and seriously injured two others, as an act of domestic terrorism and an attempted assassination. Trump’s campaign said the presumptive GOP nominee was doing “fine” after the shooting, which Trump said pierced the upper part of his right ear.
Wray and other senior officials privately briefed members of Congress last week, telling them that Crooks had photos on his phone of Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden and other officials and had looked up the dates for the Democratic National Convention as well as Trump’s appearances.
A law enforcement official told The Associated Press last week that Crooks had also flown a drone above the rally site before the event in an apparent effort to scope out the scene in advance.
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