Social media account with extremist comments could be tied to Trump gunman, FBI says

The FBI has found a social media account featuring antisemitic and anti-immigration comments that investigators believe to be associated with the gunman who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump, a senior bureau official said Tuesday.

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate told members of Congress that the account could be linked to the shooter, Thomas Crooks, but he cautioned that officials are still working to verify the account's authenticity.

"There were over 700 comments posted; some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature," Abbate told a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees.

The note of caution about the account's authenticity stems, in part, from confusion about a gaming account that the FBI had at one point attributed to Crooks but later turned out to be a hoax.

The details about the account came as lawmakers questioned Abbate and the acting director of the Secret Service about security failures and other details of the July 13 shooting targeting Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, in Butler, Pa. Crooks was able to fire eight shots from the roof of a nearby building; a bullet or bullet fragment struck Trump, killed a person at the rally, and injured two others before Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper.

Abbate said the account dates to the 2019-2020 time period, when Crooks would have been 15 or 16 years old. It could provide a glimpse into Crooks' thinking, which has proven elusive as the FBI said the shooter generally had few social contacts and little social media presence. It wasn't clear from Abbate's