Tom Pappert, reporter at The Pennsylvania Daily Star, is raising concerns about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) handling of the investigation into the would-be assassin who attempted to take former President Donald Trump’s life during a campaign rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania on July 13.
Pappert, who has reported extensively on the 22-year old suspected shooter Thomas Crooks who was shot dead by U.S. Secret Service, reported Friday that Crooks’ body was released by the FBI to the family ten days after the shooting, who then cremated the body.
The revelation was first reported by Representative Clay Higgins (R-LA-03), a member of the U.S. House committee investigating the assassination attempt, which Pappert confirmed with the FBI.
Pappert pointed out how the FBI’s permission for Crooks’ body to be cremated by the family just 10 days following the assassination attempt means that the U.S. House committee will not be able to review the body or receive answers to any additional questions about the body or further information about the forthcoming autopsy report.
“On July 13, Thomas Matthew Crooks took eight shots, wounding President Trump, wounding two rally attendees, and killing that poor fire chief, Corey Comparatore. Ten days later, the FBI authorized the family to take the body away from the government and to cremate it, which means Thomas Crook’s remains are no longer in material existence,” Pappert explained on Friday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“Representative Higgins said this means we’re going to get an eventual autopsy report – which is late, by the way – we’re going to get photos of his body, we’re going to get photos of where the bullet entered his head, but no person on that House committee is ever going to be allowed to actually review the body and questions are now unanswerable because of this. And this isn’t the only questionable act the FBI has taken, according to Representative Higgins,” Pappert added.
In regards to the process that allowed the FBI to release the body after just 10 days following the attempted assassination, Pappert said he believes the FBI “invented” its own authority in handling the body.
“My understanding is the FBI swooped in and said, ‘Because this is a federal investigation, we are going to take ownership, custodianship of this body and it will be used for the federal investigation.’ So my understanding is it was essentially taken away from Butler County and from the area where the shooting actually happened. The decision that the FBI made to release this body to the parents who immediately cremated did not seem to be cleared through anybody. It was not cleared through the U.S. Congress and it was not cleared, it seems, through local police,” Pappert explained.
“It seems that the FBI invented their own authority to do so and perhaps they made a convincing argument to the local coroner to say, ‘Look, I’m a fed and you’re a local, I come first, you get to wait.’ It seems to me, just speculating here, that the FBI could have even made some promises, like, ‘We need to do our testing because we’ve got the fancy federal facilities and then we’ll send him back.’ Instead, now he’s been cremated,” Pappert added.
When it comes to the autopsy report of Crooks, Pappert was not optimistic when asked if the forthcoming report would have included testing for any antipsychotic drugs or SSRI drugs, pointing out that the autopsy report of the Covenant School shooter in Nashville, Tennessee last year omitted such testing.
“If the pattern that the FBI has set continues to go forward, I would not be surprised if we find out such testing was omitted. And it would not be the first time,” Papprt said.
All things considered, Pappert pointed out the stark contrast between the FBI and the Butler Township Police Department in regards to communication amid the attempted assassination, saying that the local authorities have been “phenomenal” in their efforts to communicate with the press about the investigation.
“We’ve received sort of shutdowns [from the FBI’s office in Pittsburgh]. We haven’t received a comment, but we’ve received responses from their national office. Now, I will just say the local police, the Butler Township Police, have been phenomenal. They are one of the most communicative police departments I’ve ever experienced in the country, and considering they probably have every reporter in America knocking on their door or emailing them right now, they get some credit in my book,” Pappert said.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Background Photo “Thomas Matthew Crooks’ House” by Jacob Grandstaff.
