EXCLUSIVE- Was President Trump's would-be assassin Thomas Crooks part of a larger conspiracy

Was Thomas Crooks, the would-be assassin of Donald Trump, part of a larger criminal network? There were others in helping, assisting Thomas. And does one private investigator's claim of an electronic device still pinging at his old high school have any merit or implications? Plus, those close to Crooks say public narratives about him are all lies. It still baffles me now. My findings in Western Pennsylvania, almost eight months later, right now. On July 13th, 2024, a seemingly mild-mannered college kid almost altered the course of human history when he shot Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. But to friends, neighbors, former teachers and investigators, why Thomas Crooks did what he did is just as much of a mystery now as it was back then. Videographer Matt McDermott and I spent a week in Butler, Pennsylvania and nearby Bethel Park in a sometimes wild journey to find out what really happened. After all these months, the trail is as cold as the ground that you see in front of me. The motive remains unknown. Why? What we found shocked us. Even though Thomas Crooks killed one rally goer, and seriously injured two others while grazing Trump's right ear, there's a lot of sympathy for him in his hometown of Bethel Park. Several people told us they don't think Crooks acted alone and that he might have been a patsy. Some also accused Biden's FBI of suppressing some information, like why Crooks' body was cremated so quickly and what his overseas encrypted accounts revealed. Private investigator Doug Hagmans had a team of seven working on this mystery after being hired by a secret client shortly after the event. He says his team used a technique called geofencing. Hagman told me they located eight or nine devices, probably cell phones, that belonged to other people but were pinpointed to being with Crooks at his home, at his old high school, at his gun club and even at the rally. Hagman said he doesn't believe Crooks acted alone and that he was part of a criminal network that's still out there and still wants to kill President Trump. Yeah, I'm gonna say that I think there's sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that there were others in helping, assisting Thomas Matthew Crooks based on the presence of electronic devices at his home as well as at the Butler Fairgrounds. But to all his neighbors, Thomas Crooks seemed like a regular teenager. I mean, he seemed like a normal kid. He seemed nice enough. He'd wave and smile, you know, every day, you know, walking around. So it's not like he was like a shut-in or anything like that, you know. Seems like a very normal teenager. Everyone we spoke to pushed back on the narrative at the time that painted Crooks as a Columbine-type loner who wore camo to school, was bullied, and even supposedly threatened to shoot up his school once. They told us that was all false. Crooks' former guidance counselor, Jim Knapp, knew Crooks and his parents and older sister since he was in ninth grade. Do you remember where you were when you heard the news that Thomas Crooks had tried to kill the person who had become the president of the United States? Sure did. It was like, are you kidding me? I said, this kid, I would have never, ever thought would have attempted this, or never would have, you know, done this. Crooks' former computer technology teacher, Xavier Harmon, was one of many who told us Crooks was not only a very gifted student, but a nice kid. Harmon said he called Crooks, quote, his little buddy. I didn't believe it. I know the individual I taught and this individual, this pigeon bear president of, and somebody who was a total 180 of who he was in my classroom. His Bethel Park High School friend said you can never really know anyone, but still said he was shocked at learning what his old economics classmate did. This kid that I played football with, like, sent me a message. He was like, do you know Matthew Crooks? And I was like, uh, no. He was like, oh wait, Thomas Matthew Crooks, you graduated with him, right? I was like, yeah, what about him? And he was like, that's who tried to assassinate Trump. I was like, get the heck out of here, dude. It's still, it still baffles me now. He went to the gun range 43 times in the year prior to shooting Donald Trump. 43 times of the Clareton range. Did he ever talk about that kind of hobby before shooting? No, I would have never taken Tom for a gun person, to be honest. He seems more of like the, like, hang out and play video games type of person. But those were the people who spoke to us. Many did not. Thomas's parents still live in a very small ranch home in Bethel Park, but have never given interviews. I'm standing right in front of the Crooks home where Thomas Crooks grew up. His parents, Matthew and Mary, are inside now. They were inside yesterday. Apparently, they never come out of their house except at 3 a.m. to go get the groceries. This, according to a number of neighbors. Crooks's older sister, Katie, lives in an apartment complex nearby, but good luck getting to her. Behind me is the apartment building where Katie Crooks, Thomas Crooks' only sibling, lives. She's about 23 years old. She works in a janitor nearby. And when we went to see if we could talk to her, we were met by two men in her apartment building complex that came to the door and told us in no uncertain terms that we had to go. They were polite, but they said, and I quote, this story is dead and you need to know that. We also visited the gun club where Crooks practiced an astonishing 43 times between August 2023 and the Trump rally in July 2024. We are right now rolling up to the Clairton gun range. This is a gun club and a shooting range about half an hour from Thomas Crooks' house. And he went once in May, two months before the attempted assassination of President Trump. And the day after, oddly enough, there were officers, agents from the Department of Homeland Security that were here shooting as well. Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins told us, however, that he's pretty sure Crooks acted alone. He investigated the incident for months as part of a bipartisan congressional committee, but he admitted to me that he still hasn't found a motive. Higgins hopes the new FBI director, Kash Patel, will help him find out more about Crooks in the coming months. But the people we spoke to said they don't believe the mystery of why Thomas Crooks did what he did will ever be solved. Why did he do it? I have, I thought I said why I thought, and I really to this day believe, evil. You know, from the time he left high school to two years later, something happened to that young man during that time. And I'm a firm believer, and as we talked earlier about my current job in the religion, I believe evil is in the world. The devil has hit the world. It has always been in the world. But I think the devil really inflicted him, caused him to snap, and that's why he did it. His teacher, Xavier Harmon, wants to remember his old student, not the scary young man he read about in the media after the shooting. I just want everybody to understand who Thomas really was and the individual that I know. You know, the monster that's being created isn't the individual that sat there for two years in my classroom. So I'm gonna focus in my heart and my mind to always remember that young man and not who he's creating.