Prior to their respective assassination attempts targeting Trump, Ryan Routh and Thomas Crooks had extraordinary proximity to U.S. Intelligence, demonstrated foreknowledge of Trump’s schedule and security, and acquired skills that intelligence agencies have a history of sharing with assets. 

Routh and Crooks had forehand knowledge of security, other federal intelligence

Routh staked out Trump’s golf club for twelve hours, lying in wait behind bushes to ambush him during an unscheduled game of golf.  Unfamiliar with the locale, Routh managed to give security the slip, bringing an AK-47-style rifle onto Trump’s golf course.  Routh managed to give a U.S. Secret Service agent the slip again after being fired upon, losing his pursuer despite initially being only ten feet away from the agent (whose gunfire somehow missed Routh), escaping in his vehicle only to be caught later thanks to a witness who snapped a picture of his license plate.  For the second time, it was not the Secret Service, but locals who caught the gunman.

Crooks’s plan also suggests that he was tipped off, specifically regarding the AGR building he would make his sniper nest.  Cell phone data put Crooks near the Butler fairgrounds on July 7 for 20 minutes — likely recon on AGR.  Crooks scoped out AGR for 70 minutes on July 13 at 11 A.M.  He went home to buy a ladder and ammunition and to retrieve his gun.  Crooks returned at 3:45 to the AGR building, carrying the ladder receipt in his pocket but lacking the ladder.  Crooks clearly planned to scale the roof with the ladder, but the fact that he left it suggests that he had learned the local snipers’ positions at AGR and would have no trouble secretly scaling the roof using an unguarded roof access point. 

Another slice of security Swiss cheese serendipitously set up for Crooks was surveillance.  After returning to AGR, Crooks flew a surveillance drone at 3:51 P.M., overlapping the USSS scheduled deployment of a “counter unmanned aerial system operator” at 3 P.M.  Crooks would have been immediately caught, but the system did not go operational until 5:20 P.M. due to “cellular bandwidth problems” — problems not experienced by Crooks. 

USSS was told that local officials were leaving their posts to look for Crooks, but it is unclear if they specifically knew when Butler ESU left AGR 6 overwatch from their second-story window.  Crooks timed his move to rooftop AGR 6 perfectly to avoid Butler ESU.  It is still unknown if anyone ordered Butler ESU to leave their post to look for Crooks.  Was this information passed to Crooks?

Crooks knew from the start where to position himself, but how?  He was on the eastern side of AGR 6, lying prone and out of view from Hercules 1 and 2 thanks to a tree and the sloped roof.  Had local officers not flushed him westward from behind a tree, Hercules 1 would not have had a shot.

Crooks’s plan depended on a flawed USSS threat protocol, which failed to designate him as an active threat until seen with a weapon.  Carrying an unassembled weapon hidden in a large backpack, Crooks openly traversed rooftops on AGR 6 and 7, traveling west to east in full view of Hercules snipers, President Trump, and even audience members.  He ran to his position out of sight and assembled the gun from his backpack.  How did Crooks learn and take advantage of this threat protocol?

Routh and Crooks were previously known to federal officials

Illegally in possession of a firearm as a felon, Routh was reported to the FBI in 2019, but he skated after the FBI failed to follow up on the lead.  Following a failed business venture in Hawaii, a penniless Routh went to Ukraine to recruit for the foreign legion, cutting a swath of infamy through the war zone.  He was reported to the State Department for human-trafficking.  He was reported to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for threatening violence.  He was banned from various aid groups, who reported him to the FBI and Interpol for trying to recruit Syrian refugees.  He even gave an interview to the NYT in 2023 detailing trafficking Afghan fighters to the Ukraine.  Veteran FBI agent Jeff Danik, an expert in counter-terrorism, told reporters Routh’s devices were likely compromised by U.S. Intelligence. 

Routh and Crooks both had intricate knowledge of identical bomb-making processes.  Although FBI director Christopher Wray denies having Crooks in the FBI’s databases, Crooks managed to make three homemade bombs within a week of the Butler rally being announced.  Bomb construction, specifically “pipe bombs,” is a ring-fenced subject in America whose research will instantly put one on federal radar.  According to a stealth edited article from CNN, officials say Crooks had searches going back to 2019 on bomb construction, specifically “blasting cap” and “detonating cord.”  In 2002, Routh was arrested for possessing a weapon of mass destruction: a “binary explosive with a 10-in[ch] detonation cord and a blasting cap.”

Crooks’s bombs, essentially pipe bombs, were capable of remote-control detonation using parts bought from China, but there is no evidence that the parts were ordered by Crooks.  Investigators and reporters have contacted the supplier, and Crooks was not a customer. 

Were these remote-control pipe bombs really made by Crooks?  Did he have help?  Did he really make these searches, or were they artificially added to answer why he had them?  Readers may recall the Governor Whitmer kidnapping hoax, where a phony militia group was infiltrated by federal officials and taught how to make pipe bombs by an FBI explosives expert.  Readers may also recall the January 6, 2020 story where suspicious “pipe bombs” were found and blamed on Trump-supporters.  Video later showed the USSS being notified of the “bombs,” leisurely standing within feet of the “bombs,” and even leading a group of children across the street toward and within feet of the “bombs.”

Routh and Crooks recruited by Intelligence?

Given Routh’s Ukrainian activities and money troubles, he would have been an easy recruit as an informant for U.S. Intelligence.  Intelligence assets such as informants rarely face justice for illegal activities ancillary to their order, which explains Routh’s cavalier behavior overseas.  Is there anyone else who could admit to human-trafficking to the NYT and be reported so many times, with nothing being done about it?  How likely is it that a man with no combat experience or resources slipped through security to nearly assassinate Trump?

There is evidence that Crooks may have been an off-the-books asset as well.  Crooks intensely prepared for the assassination attempt at the Clairton Gun Club, first joining in August 2023.  He visited the range 43 times, including on Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Halloween.  He went to the range three to six times each month in 2024, almost exclusively training with rifles.  These are not activities of a hobbyist who didn’t hunt or join his school’s rifle club.  DHS officials frequently trained at Clairton, rubbing elbows with him.  Two months before the assassination attempt, Crooks was at the range within 24 hours of a DHS training session. 

Does the reader find U.S. Intelligence wetworks operations unbelievable?  The 2015 Garland, Texas shooting was triggered after an FBI agent told a terror cell to “Tear up Texas.” 

Grant Baker is writing a book on political theory based on Trump’s populist era.  You can sign up for updates and support him here.  

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