Prepare to be stunned by the dark digital trail left by Thomas Crooks, the man who fired at Donald Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024.
According to the Daily Mail, the story of Crooks, who attempted to assassinate Trump at the height of a presidential campaign, has taken a chilling turn with revelations of his online obsessions, violent rhetoric, and mysterious international contacts, all while the FBI insists he acted alone.
Around early 2020, Crooks’ political views took a sharp leftward turn, moving from supporting Trump to embracing radical ideas.
By January 2020, he was openly criticizing Trump on YouTube, calling out the former president’s “stupidity” and deriding supporters as sounding like a “cult.”
His online activity under the handles “epicmicrowave” and “theepicmicrowave” on DeviantArt revealed a fascination with sexually explicit “furry” content—human-like animal characters—often featuring cartoon figures with muscular male bodies and female heads.
Notably, these accounts used “they/them” pronouns, often associated with transgender identity, painting a complex picture of a troubled individual lost in fringe digital spaces.
Tucker Carlson’s deep dive into Crooks’ online footprint uncovered violent statements, including calls for “terrorism-style attacks” against the government.
Crooks allegedly wrote on YouTube about sneaking bombs into buildings and targeting key figures for assassination, chilling words that suggest a mind consumed by destructive fantasies, as reported by Carlson.
“[In my opinion] the only way to fight the [government] is with terrorism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building [and] set it off before anyone sees you, track down important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to assassinate them,” Crooks reportedly stated, per Carlson’s findings.
Even more unsettling is Crooks’ contact with a Norwegian national, referred to as Tepes, allegedly tied to the Nordic Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi group labeled a terrorist organization by the State Department.
After engaging with Tepes, Crooks’ YouTube activity abruptly stopped, raising questions about the nature of their exchanges. Tepes reportedly told Crooks, “There is no way we can avoid a war at this point, so you just better get used to the idea,” a statement that drips with fatalistic zeal, as cited by Carlson.
Despite these revelations, the FBI maintains Crooks acted solo, with no co-conspirators or foreign influence, a stance reiterated by Kash Patel based on an investigation by over 480 agents.
Yet, Carlson points out the FBI’s silence on Tepes, even though someone captured a screenshot of Tepes’ obscure YouTube page shortly after the shooting, fueling suspicions of a broader story being buried.
MAGA influencers and lawmakers, including Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, have demanded transparency, with some floating theories of government manipulation, though such claims remain speculative at best.