It's 'Fullest Picture Yet' of Man Who Tried to Kill Trump

What drove a "nerdy engineering student on the dean's list" to attempt to take Donald Trump's life? It's a largely unanswered question, and one Steve Eder and Tawnell D. Hobbs attempt to chip away at for the New York Times. The two present what they describe as "the fullest picture yet" of Thomas Crooks' life, one they arrived at after reviewing thousands of pages of his classroom assignments, emails, internet history, and text messages, as well as government reports and dozens of interviews with those who knew him or know about the investigation. And yet their portrait still leaves plenty of blanks, among them motive. Some of the standout details:

• Crooks tested well in high school, notching 1530 out of a possible 1600 on the SAT and getting the highest possible score on three Advanced Placement exams.
• His family was politically diverse: His father and sister were registered Libertarians, his mother a Democrat. His dad told federal agents Crooks "never really indicated that he liked one or the other [a reference to former President Biden and Trump] more."

• He was socially isolated. His parents told agents they didn't think their son had friends. An oral communications class he took in 2022 at Community College of Allegheny County required that he speak in front of five adults. He asked the requirement to be waived, telling the professor the only adults he had access to were his parents and possibly his sister.
• In January 2024 he spent $102 on a couple of gallons of the fuel additive nitromethane, which can be used to make explosives. It was ordered to his home address; agents who descended on his parents' house after the shooting noted a gallon jug labeled nitromethane in Crooks' bedroom closet.
• His father told investigators the signs he'd observed about his son's changing mental health in the months prior to the shooting, noting he had observed him talking to himself and dancing in his room late at night.
• In the month before the shooting, Crooks carried out more than 60 searches about Biden and Trump, but the Times notes "there were hints that he hadn't fully committed to an attack": for instance, he emailed his college registrar asking for an update on when his associate degree diploma would be mailed.

(Read the full story for more.)