Judicial Watch has announced that it obtained 249 pages of new FBI records, which include a redacted chat thread related to Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman who attempted to assassinate then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024.
The conservative watchdog group stated that it received these files through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit it filed in July 2025, after the FBI did not respond to a request for records pertaining to Crooks and the shooting.
Crooks fired during a July 2024 campaign rally, wounding Trump and others before a counter-sniper killed him.
The records include a partially visible phone chat and FBI laboratory findings from a drone, according to Breitbart.
Judicial Watch says the material arrived through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in July 2025.
The group sued after the bureau did not answer its request for records about Crooks and the shooting.
An FBI communication dated July 19, 2024, describes messages exchanged between Crooks and an unidentified recipient.
The thread spans May 21, 2023, through January 3, 2024, months before the assassination attempt.
The recipient’s name is redacted, and the incoming messages are entirely blacked out in the released copy.
Visible outgoing entries include “Hello red,” “Yolo” and “890,” alongside short strings of apparently random letters.
Those fragments reveal that communication occurred, but they do not establish the recipient’s identity or the conversation’s meaning.
The file’s redactions leave the public unable to read the other side of the exchange.
That limitation has prompted renewed demands for disclosure from the watchdog group behind the lawsuit.
“These latest records reveal more pieces of the puzzle surrounding Thomas Crooks,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.
Fitton urged the FBI to end what he called a “slow drip of heavily redacted records.”
He called for the full investigative file to be released, particularly following the recent death of wounded rallygoer James Copenhaver.
The released material also includes a July 18, 2024, review of messages on a Samsung phone.
That review marked some communications as “pertinent,” including campaign solicitations associated with then-Senate candidate Raphael Warnock.
It also noted DHL shipment notifications from Hong Kong, according to the report.
A campaign solicitation appearing on a phone does not, by itself, establish a political relationship or motive.
Likewise, a shipping notification alone does not establish what was shipped or whether it related to the shooting.
The FBI’s laboratory analysis of a drone makes up much of the newly obtained production.
A July 19 report says investigators extracted 40 images and eight flight logs from the device.
Seven flights occurred around Allegheny-West in the Pittsburgh area between February 6 and February 27, 2024.
The eighth flight took place over Butler on July 13, the day Crooks opened fire.
The drone had been powered on 15 times, according to the FBI analysis described in the report.
The flight logs and images offer investigators a record of where and when the device operated.
Their release adds specifics about Crooks’s movements without resolving every question about his planning or communications.
Judicial Watch also described texts under a “January 7 Intel Chain” heading in a companion release.
Those texts referenced “two CIA bomb techs” assisting at a pipe-bomb scene, the group said.
They also mentioned “several CIA dog teams on standby,” according to Judicial Watch’s description.
Those references do not establish any CIA role in plotting the attack, and the report makes no such finding.
The watchdog group estimates the full FBI file contains roughly 75,000 pages.
At a release pace of about 500 pages monthly, Judicial Watch says production could take approximately 12 years.
That estimate frames its criticism of the pace and extent of public disclosure.
Trump has separately claimed the attack was a Democratic plot and alleged problems with the case file.
The newly released chat fragments do not establish that claim, and the FBI has maintained Crooks acted alone, Breitbart News reported.
The difference between questions raised by redactions and proof of another participant remains crucial.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
