FBI Says Gunman Saw Trump as a “Target of Opportunity”

The FBI says that the gunman who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally saw the former president as a “target of opportunity” and could just as easily have taken a shot at Joe Biden had a similar opportunity presented itself.

According to a “senior FBI official,” Thomas Matthew Crooks searched online for events being held by both Trump and Joe Biden, and he looked up information about explosives over the last five years and eyed the Pennsylvania campaign rally where he opened fire last month as a “target of opportunity.”

Investigators who have conducted nearly 1,000 interviews do not yet have a motive for why Crooks shot at Trump during the July campaign rally, but they believe that he conducted “extensive attack planning,” including looking up campaign events involving both the current president and former president, particularly in western Pennsylvania.

The FBI analysis of his online search history reveals a “sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some event, meaning he looked at any number of events or targets,” Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, told reporters during the most recent in a series of briefings about the ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile, Trump claimed in an interview with Dr. Phil that President Biden was at “fault” for the lack of sufficient security detail when he was nearly assassinated at the July 13 rally.

“People would ask, whose fault is it? I think to a certain extent it’s Biden’s fault and Harris’s fault,” Trump claimed during the sit-down with the popular TV personality. Trump pointed to the Democrats’ repeated rhetoric about the 45th president being a “threat to democracy.”

“And I’m the opponent,” Trump emphasized. “Look, they were weaponizing the government against me. They brought in the whole DOJ to try and get me. They weren’t too interested in my health and safety.”

“Our people were always fighting to get more security, more Secret Service, and he knew that we didn’t have enough,” he claimed.

Secret Service officials denied requests from Trump to beef up his security in the two years before the assassination attempt, citing a lack of sufficient resources that had to be filled in by local law enforcement in many cases.

The GOP campaign had reportedly asked for more agents and magnetometers for large public events as well as more snipers for outdoor venues.

In coordinating for the Pennsylvania rally, local law enforcement had offered drone technology to provide additional help, but it was turned down by the Secret Service, a whistleblower told Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in late July.

“The Biden/Harris Administration did not properly protect me, and I was forced to take a bullet for Democracy. IT WAS MY GREAT HONOR TO DO SO!” Trump posted on Truth Social on July 23.