Campaign data identified Trump shooter’s father as a ‘strong Republican, likely gun owner, and hunter’

The father of 20-year-old would-be Donald Trump assassin Thomas Crooks was previously identified by the former president’s campaign as one of the voters in his area most likely to respond favorably to pro-gun messaging.

That’s according to confidential data obtained by Britain’s Channel 4 News, which said 53-year-old Matthew Crooks—who legally purchased the AR-15 rifle used by his son to fire at Trump as he spoke at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on Saturday—was covertly profiled by the Trump team in 2016 as “a strong Republican, likely gun owner and ‘hunter.’”

The campaign’s private database analyzed 6.7 million people in the Keystone State, a crucial battleground in the race for president, listing Matthew Crooks, a registered Libertarian, as among the top 20 prospects of 19,000 residents in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park, Channel 4 reported. He scored highly “across a range of gun-related [data] models,” according to the outlet, and was flagged by the Trump team as a voter “who could be susceptible to political messages about gun-rights.”

Crooks’ mother, a Democrat, was also singled out by Trump’s campaign as a likely gun owner who was potentially receptive to such messaging.

Overall, the Trump campaign ranked roughly 50 million individuals in 10 swing states, using the firearms-specific data models, according to Channel 4, which called the data-ming program “secretive.”

Crooks, a registered Republican who was not an attendee at Saturday’s rally, squeezed off at least eight shots from a nearby rooftop, clipping Trump in the ear. Trump was not seriously wounded, but one spectator was killed and two others critically injured. FBI officials said they were unsure if Crooks’ father had given his son permission to use