OAN Staff Abril Elfi
4:34 PM – Tuesday, June 10, 2025
A new report has surfaced claiming that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old who attempted, but failed, to assassinate President Donald Trump, had suffered a “descent into madness” leading up to the murder attempt.
According to the report, the failed would-be assassin eventually began “having conversations with someone that wasn’t there.”
A recent report by The New York Times stated that Crooks “went through a gradual and largely hidden transformation from a meek engineering student critical of political polarization to a focused killer who tried to build bombs.”
The report made the claims while citing thousands of pages of school assignments, internet activity logs, and interviews with dozens of individuals who personally knew Crooks and the investigation surrounding him — among other documents.
“There was a mysteriousness to Thomas Crooks’s descent into madness,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) who served on a Congressional task force that investigated the July 13, 2024 shooting, told the outlet.
After learning information about Crooks’ mental health issues during a trip to Pennsylvania to investigate the assassination attempt, Higgins noted that the failed assassin was “having conversations with someone that wasn’t there.”
According to the New York Times, the only time Crooks fell into trouble prior to the Trump shooting was for “chewing gum at lunchtime” in middle school.
The newspaper mentioned in the piece stated that Crooks received a SAT score of 1530 out of a possible 1600 and graduated from Allegheny County Community College, where he spent multiple semesters on the dean’s list while pursuing an engineering degree. He was ready to transfer to Robert Morris University, just outside of Pittsburgh, and had told classmates that he wanted to work in aerospace or robotics, according to the newspaper.
Crooks’ father, however, witnessed his son’s mental decline in the year preceding the shooting, and notably, after the May 2024 graduation, he told authorities that he had seen Thomas “talking to himself” and dancing around in his bedroom late at night, according to the newspaper.
According to the New York Times, Crooks’ behavior aligned with a long family history of mental health and drug issues — citing excerpts of a Pennsylvania State Police report.
A classmate told the publication that Crooks enjoyed discussing the economy and cryptocurrency in high school. According to the outlet, while attending community college, he also created a chess board for the visually challenged, including his mother.
“He seemed like a really intelligent kid – I thought he would be able to do whatever he wanted,” Trish Thompson, who taught Crooks’ engineering at the Community College of Allegheny County, told the newspaper.
In April 2023, Crooks also reportedly wrote an essay in favor of ranked-choice voting in American politics, arguing against “divisive and incendiary campaigns which are pulling the country apart.”
“As we move closer to the 2024 elections we should consider carefully the means by which we elect our officials,” Crooks was quoted by the New York Times as saying. “We need an election system that promotes kindness and cooperation instead of division and anger.”
According to the FBI, Crooks used an alias to make over 25 firearm-related purchases from online suppliers around the same period.
The New York Times reported that Crooks used an encrypted email address to acquire gallons of nitromethane, a fuel additive that may be used to make explosives. He reportedly provided his home location for delivery.
According to the report, Crooks then joined a local gun club during the summer of 2023.
The outlet added that Crooks visited news and gun websites, as well as the Trump administration’s archives, before narrowing his online searches in the days leading up to the attack to queries such as “How far was Oswald from Kennedy?’”
His searches also included “major depressive disorder” and “depression crisis.”
In the weeks preceding the Trump assassination attempt, he continued to work as a dietary aide at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
According to the New York Times, ATF investigators visited Crooks’ home in Bethel Park on the night of the shooting, but they were “forced to withdraw” after discovering an ammunition can “with a white wire coming out” and a gallon jug labeled “nitromethane” in his closet.
Outside the property, investigators contacted Crooks’ parents, who said he enjoyed making things and going to the gun range. His father also strangely claimed that he didn’t “know anything” about his son — the outlet continued.
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