Hello everyone. A shocking new twist has emerged in the ongoing investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A recently surfaced video raises serious questions about the timeline and events leading up to the incident, potentially rewriting what we thought we knew.
So, here’s what happened: A vendor at the rally, Joe Tomko, who owns Iron Clad USA, was just going about his business, filming the crowd at the event. He had no idea that his footage, captured at 4:26 pm on July 13, would hold a critical piece of the puzzle. It turns out that he accidentally recorded the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, as he wandered through the merchandise stalls hours before the attack. This discovery is throwing a wrench into previous accounts of where Crooks was during that time.
He walked around without a care in the world. Calm and relaxed. No appearance of nervousness.
Thomas Crooks before attempted assassination of President Trump. #J13
There’s no way this teen acted alone. He walked around like someone(s) had his back.pic.twitter.com/Mm8h6AP8CF
— Navy⚓Brat (@_NavyBrat) August 20, 2024
Now, what makes this video so significant? For starters, this is the earliest confirmed sighting of Crooks at the rally. It coincides perfectly with a message sent by a local police sniper, who also reported seeing someone who looked like Crooks sitting at a nearby picnic table around the same time. But here’s where it gets tricky: Other snipers from Beaver, Butler, and Washington County were texting each other, saying they spotted Crooks in a completely different location, also around 4:26 pm. Talk about conflicting evidence!
Tomko, who didn’t realize the importance of his footage until a week later, told the Daily Mail that he was in disbelief when he saw Crooks in the video. Imagine his shock when he noticed that Crooks was wearing the exact same outfit he had on when the Secret Service eventually shot him.
New video has surfaced of Thomas Crooks walking around the Butler Trump rally. However, there’s a problem. At the exact same time the video was taken (4:26 PM), sniper Greg Nicol sent texts to members of Beaver County Emergency Services, that Crooks was sitting at a picnic table. pic.twitter.com/8MuX6YbEvM
— Steve Cameron🌎 (@SteveCameronPr1) August 20, 2024
Interestingly, the vendor area where Crooks was caught on camera was pretty much an open zone—anyone could walk in from the street, check out the booths, and then head to the main rally area, where more stringent security measures were in place. This lack of security could explain how Crooks managed to blend in so easily.
Meanwhile, another sniper, James Woods from Beaver County, finished his shift and spotted someone matching Crooks’ description near an exit, also at 4:26 pm. He alerted his colleagues, but Crooks vanished from view and wasn’t seen again until just after 6:00 pm. By then, Greg Nicol, another local sniper, saw him running with a backpack. Nicol tried to follow but lost him in the chaos just as police were closing in.
The video evidence gets even more intense. It shows Crooks climbing onto a nearby building’s roof at about 6:06 pm. Within minutes, the Secret Service was alerted. Things escalated quickly from there—by 6:11 pm, Crooks, realizing he was trapped, opened fire, grazing Trump’s right ear before a Secret Service counter-sniper ended the threat.
This new video has left investigators with more questions than answers. Why was Crooks wandering the vendor area hours before the shooting? How did he slip through unnoticed? And what exactly was his plan? Despite being a bright student with an associate degree in engineering and no criminal record, Crooks’ motivations are still a mystery. The FBI is digging deep into his past, looking for clues to piece together this tragic event.
