(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Days after the July 13 assassination attempt against Donald Trump, Congress was provided information from the FBI that the shooter “previewed” his attack on a gaming platform called Steam.
“At least once, [Thomas Crooks’s] browsing history signaled concerns about his own mental state. He also seems to have previewed his attack on Steam, a gaming platform he frequented, telling fellow gamers he planned to make his ‘premiere’ on July 13, the day of the shooting,” The New York Times reported on July 17—an article that was corroborated by similar reporting from Fox News.
However, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress on Wednesday that the Steam account in question did not, in fact, belong to Crooks. Wray admitted that his own agents were duped by a fake account—meaning that the FBI briefed Congress with fake evidence in the crucial hours following an assassination attempt against the presidential frontrunner.
THE FBI BRIEFED CONGRESS W/ FAKE EVIDENCE
After the FBI briefed Congress behind closed doors on July 17, there were numerous reports that Trump shooter Thomas Crooks previewed his account on a gaming platform called Steam.
But this week, Chris Wray admitted that the FBI provided… pic.twitter.com/OrZ75gzdk4— Headline USA (@HeadlineUSA) July 27, 2024
“That’s a situation where in our effort to give real-time information, since we’ve provided that information, we’ve since learned that the July 13 ‘premier’ profile page on the gaming platform—it turns out, it was not the shooter. It was some other individual, who as a sick joke, after the shooting created the profile page pretending to be the shooter,” Wray said in response to questions from Rep. Benjamin Cline, R-Va.
“That person has since admitted to it,” Wray said, referring to the hoaxer. “Among the other challenges we as investigators have, we have people creating accounts pretending to be somebody when it’s not the actual person.”
Wray did say that Crooks had multiple accounts on gaming platforms.
“We do believe he was a gamer and that he did have different types of gaming accounts,” Wray said.
Wray said the FBI is still in the process of subpoenaing information from the various gaming platforms and chat apps used by Crooks.
As Headline USA has detailed, one of Crooks’s accounts was on Discord—a chatting app used by feds, intelligence contractors and an assortment of bad actors to target gamers.
Indeed, NBC News reported in April 2023 that the Biden White House is “looking at expanding the universe of online sites that intelligence agencies and law enforcement authorities track.”
Trump shooter Matthew Crooks reportedly had an account on the popular gamer chat app, Discord.
HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS!
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) July 15, 2024
Around that same time last year, investigative reporter Lee Fang also published a story about how the U.S. government is partnering with private intelligence firms to spy on gaming chatrooms—revealing that the online spooks are particularly interested in conducting surveillance on teenagers.
Fang quoted an unnamed official from the Israeli threat intelligence firm CyberInt, who said: “I prefer to detect threat actors when they’re young or starting out at 14 or 15. That’s when I start observing and documenting their malicious activities. Because when they’re at that age or stage in their career, they’re a lot more careless and open. They tend to show off more.”
The latest information on the government’s targeting of gamers came in February, when the Government Accountability Office reported that the FBI increased its efforts last year to infiltrate gaming servers.
“Officials said in 2023, the FBI worked to increase engagement with gaming and gaming-adjacent companies for the annual meeting and on outreach efforts with the program manager,” the GAO report said.
“Officials said that as the FBI works with more companies, it continues to learn how companies operate, the type of behavior and content companies see on their platforms, and the extent to which companies report information as tips.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
