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Judicial Watch President Thomas Fitton slammed the FBI for slow-walking the release of documents related to Thomas Matthew Crooks’ 2024 assassination attempt on President Donald Trump during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.
“They are telling us that at current processing rates, the process will take 12 years. Under the FBI’s timeline, we won’t even be able to challenge what they withheld until 12 years from now. That is obviously unacceptable, and I would like to know what leadership at the FBI and DOJ think about that position,” Fitton told Fox News Digital.
Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2025 after the FBI initially rejected a July 2024 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to the FBI investigation of Thomas Matthew Crooks’ assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
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The lawsuit forced the release of multiple batches of documents to Judicial Watch, the most recent of which revealed a series of text messages Crooks sent to an unknown recipient, whose name the FBI redacted before sending to Judicial Watch.
Thomas Matthew Crooks was a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump during a 2024 campaign rally before being shot and killed by Secret Service agents. (Obtained by Fox News Digital)
“We’re receiving these documents because they’re part of the investigation, yet we’re not being told who he was talking to,” Fitton told Fox News Digital.
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“Withholding that information is a very concerning decision. The American people want to be certain this isn’t another JFK situation. By handling it this way, authorities are creating the appearance of a cover-up. In part, that’s true, because they aren’t providing details about who Crooks was talking to, who was texting him, what they were saying, or who witnessed specific actions. It makes no sense to withhold this,” he said.
The documents revealed a series of one or two-word texts Crooks sent to the redacted recipient between May 2023 and January 2024. The words appear unrelated and somewhat nonsensical.
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“Hello … Hello red …Hello red … Hdudhdbdbbd … 7888ejdj … Yolo … Ddodjjf … 890 … Hdjd … Djdj … red … Yup red … Hello … Jhhhuuh … Hhdj … Jjjjjjjjjjjj … Hello red … Red red,” Crooks’ messages said.
Fitton, while acknowledging that any potential correspondents with Crooks have a reasonable expectation of privacy, argued that the FBI “must weigh that expectation of privacy against the public interest.”
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“The public interest in understanding how a former president was nearly killed – and two American citizens were killed – outweighs the privacy interests of anyone being protected in these documents. Unless the court speeds up the process, all we can do is speak out publicly to pressure the FBI and the Department of Justice to take ownership and stop stringing the American people along regarding the Butler assassination investigation,” he told Fox News Digital.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is rushed offstage by U.S. Secret Service agents after being grazed by a bullet during a rally on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pa. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
A previous batch of documents Judicial Watch obtained through FOIA also revealed that, shortly before Crooks climbed onto the roof of the AGR International building where he fired his weapon from, he engaged in a heated argument with rally attendees on the ground.
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“Thomas Crooks was behaving erratically in a very public way at the rally. This wasn’t a case of someone furtively running around; he was getting into a verbal altercation with individuals about Trump and then immediately went up onto the roof. That just blows my mind,” Fitton told Fox News Digital.
Rep. Kweisi Mfume D-Md., gestures to a photograph of the building where Thomas Matthew Crooks fired on former President Donald Trump as United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testifies before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee during a hearing at the Rayburn House Office Building on July 22, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Fitton complained that the shear numbers of the documents involved in the shooting call for a faster release process.
“The entire release process involves approximately 75,000 pages. At 500 pages per month, it will take well over 12 years to review them all. To me, that is unacceptable,” he told Fox News Digital.
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“It isn’t that hard. I believe the president wants it done, and it’s frustrating that the FBI is taking its typical approach to transparency—which is to offer very little,” he said.
Fox News Digital contacted the FBI and U.S. Secret Service for comment.