Federal investigators are analyzing device’s content, although it is unclear how agency gained access

The FBI has gained access to the phone of the suspected gunman who opened fire on Donald Trump’s rally and is analyzing the device’s contents, the agency stated in a press release on Monday afternoon. The shooting, which killed one audience member and left Trump bleeding from one ear, is being investigated as an assassination attempt.

Authorities have been working to determine the motive behind the attack at Trump’s campaign rally on Saturday, but no clear picture has yet emerged. The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks by the FBI, was shot and killed in the incident.

Federal investigators announced on Sunday that they had obtained Crooks’s cellphone, but had issues with bypassing its password protections to access the data within. FBI investigators then shipped the phone to a lab in Virginia, where agents successfully gained access, per the bureau’s press release.

  • @FireTower
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    121 month ago

    Crooks, who left behind no immediately available manifesto or record of the attack, unlike many other modern assassination plots or mass shootings. He was registered as a Republican voter and donated $15 to a Democratic-allied organization but did not maintain a large online presence.

    Well this is thoroughly unhelpful.

    • @Numenor
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      101 month ago

      Someone with the same name made the donation. At this point, we do not know if it was the assassin who made the donation, or an 80 year old with the same name.

      • @MonkRome
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        151 month ago

        IIRC the donation had his address on it, they do in fact know it was him.

        • FuglyDuck
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          71 month ago

          Or GrandPa Crooks.

          In any case, I’m still trying to figure out how closely-related the organization was. “Democrat allied” or whatever could be almost anything.

          • @evidences
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            71 month ago

            The organization was ActBlue.

            ActBlue Charities Inc. is an American political action committee and fundraising platform established for serving left-leaning and Democratic nonprofits and politicians.

      • @kromem
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        51 month ago

        It literally has the address of his house on it.