The Biden FBI had one job after Thomas Crooks nearly assassinated Donald Trump in Butler.
Now Trump says the evidence was "missing, altered, corrupted, or gone" by the time he got back to the White House.
A stranger's money turned Crooks to ash before Congress ever got a look at him.
Higgins Went to Examine the Body. It Was Already Gone.
Rep. Clay Higgins traveled to Butler on August 5, more than three weeks after the shooting, to examine Crooks' body as part of the congressional task force investigating the assassination attempt.
The body was gone.
The FBI had released it for cremation on July 23, 2024 – ten days after Crooks fired eight shots at Trump during the campaign rally, grazing his ear and killing volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore.
Nobody in Butler knew the body was already gone. Not the county coroner. Not local law enforcement. Not the sheriff.
Higgins said the discovery "revealed a disturbing fact." He called what the FBI had done obstruction of any future investigation into the shooting.
Now we know something else.
The family didn't pay for the cremation.
Buried at the end of an FBI interview summary with Crooks' father is a five-word note: "Anonymous donor paid for cremation."
Think about that for a moment.
Thomas Matthew Crooks had no friends – his own father told FBI investigators his son "never identified anyone as a friend throughout middle school and high school." His parents were both out of work after the shooting: his mother on leave, his father retired early.
Someone outside that family paid to have him cremated. Nobody has said who.
The Alias, the Gun Parts, and the $15 to Democrats
The documents Grassley's committee received contain other details that raise more questions than they answer.
In the months before the Butler rally, Crooks ordered large quantities of gun parts and rifle modification equipment using a fake name – "Bob Dole."
He arranged for the packages to arrive before his father got home from work.
Crooks was a registered Republican who donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project through ActBlue on the day Joe Biden was inaugurated – January 20, 2021.
He was shocked when Trump won in 2016, but was equally critical of both political parties, according to classmates.
His motive remains officially unknown.
The FBI closed its investigation in November 2025 and said Crooks acted alone.
The Biden FBI Destroyed the Evidence and Called It Routine
Here is what the FBI expects you to accept: A 20-year-old with no friends, a fake identity for gun purchases, explosives in his car, and a $15 donation to Democrats on Inauguration Day fired eight shots from a rooftop 130 yards from Trump – and we will never know why, because the bureau cremated the evidence before anyone else could look at it.
The FBI called the cremation timeline "keeping with normal procedures."
Normal procedures.
The bureau scrubbed the rooftop clean within three days of the shooting. It released Crooks' body before the congressional task force could examine it. And now federal documents confirm a mystery donor – someone with no publicly identified connection to Crooks – paid for that cremation.
Trump says the Biden FBI ran this investigation like a coverup, not an inquiry.
The documented facts are damning enough on their own. A GAO report ordered by Grassley found Secret Service officials sat on classified threat intelligence for ten days before the rally and never told the agents securing the site. Grassley's committee is the only reason any of this is coming out at all – two years after Corey Comperatore died at that rally protecting his family.
Someone paid to make Thomas Crooks disappear.
We still don't know who.
Sources:
- Michael Ruiz and Kelley Kramer, "Attempted Trump assassin Thomas Crooks used 'Bob Dole' alias before anonymous donor paid for cremation: docs," Fox News, September 15, 2026.
- "Anonymous Donor Paid to Cremate Thomas Crooks Just 10 Days After He Tried to Assassinate President Trump in Butler," Gateway Pundit, September 15, 2026.
- "Who Paid To Cremate Wannabe Trump Assassin? FBI Files Reveal Mysterious Answer," Daily Wire, September 15, 2026.
- Michael Dorgan, "FBI fires back at claims it released Crooks' body for cremation days after Trump assassination attempt," Fox News, August 16, 2024.
- "FBI denies 'obstruction' accusation from GOP rep after Trump shooter's body cremated days after Butler rally," The Post Millennial, August 2024.
- Scott McDonald, "Who was Thomas Matthew Crooks? What we know about Trump's attempted assassin," Fox News, July 14, 2024.
- "Critical security lapses by Secret Service exposed in new report on Trump assassination attempt," Fox News, July 2025.
