Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight shots at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in 2024, used the alias "Bob Dole" to receive packages, and had his body cremated by an anonymous donor before investigators could finish their work. The FBI under Christopher Wray looked at all of that and concluded in August 2024 that they found no definitive motive and no co-conspirators.
Then the adults took over. And suddenly there was more to find.
Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed on September 15 that the FBI has discovered new information related to the Butler assassination attempt — information that apparently didn't exist when Wray's bureau was running the show. Blanche said it was "not really clear" what FBI leadership was doing before the shooting, a diplomatic way of saying nobody at the top was doing their job.
The timing here is key. President Trump had publicly accused the Wray-era FBI of altering or suppressing files connected to the Butler attack. He posted on Truth Social that by the time he got back into office the information was "missing or altered" and called the entire episode "a Democrat plot." Within days, Blanche's Justice Department confirmed that FBI Director Kash Patel's team had turned up material the previous leadership either missed or buried.
A bipartisan House task force had already concluded the shooting was preventable. The Secret Service failed to secure the American Glass Research building complex where Crooks positioned himself. Those failures were documented, investigated, and supposedly resolved. But the FBI's own internal handling of evidence? That part stayed murky — until now.
The Wray FBI's position was always the same: no motive, no conspiracy, nothing more to see. They closed every door as fast as they opened it. The cremation of the shooter's body by an anonymous donor — a detail that would set off alarm bells in any competent investigation — produced no public follow-up. The alias used for package deliveries went unexplained. The August 2024 report read less like an investigation and more like a closing statement.
Wray resigned before President Trump returned to office on January 20. He didn't stay to defend his agency's work. He didn't offer to cooperate with whatever came next. He left, and the files he left behind had gaps -- big ones.
Blanche's confirmation of new evidence doesn't specify what was found — only that it exists where the old FBI said it didn't.
The Senate held hearings. The House formed a task force. The Secret Service shuffled leadership. Everyone agreed the shooting was preventable. But the one agency responsible for understanding why it happened in the first place kept producing reports that said, essentially, "We looked. There's nothing here."
Now there's something here. The only variable that changed was who was looking.