Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Too Many Americans Want a Civil War


The political assassination of Charlie Kirk continues to impact America.  Charlie’s conservative nonprofit organization, , has seen a surge in membership.  There are reports across the country of increased church attendance, as lapsed congregants contemplate the sacrifice Charlie made to spread a Christian message.  Conservative and Christian Americans are expressing themselves more boldly on social media platforms and college campuses.

An equally important, though darkly troubling, consequence of his murder has been the deluge of mockery and hatred from leftists celebrating Charlie’s death.  Antifa-aligned groups show up on college campuses to  Turning Point staff and prevent students from hearing Charlie’s arguments.  Prominent Democrats continue to  that violent leftist rhetoric had nothing to do with his murder.  Celebrity “journalists” defend Charlie’s assassination by not-so-subtly suggesting that Charlie’s willingness to debate a range of political and moral issues with Americans of all political backgrounds constituted some kind of impermissible “hate” or linguistic “violence.”

In a recent  with Democrat Senator John Fetterman, leftist propagandist Katie Couric tried really hard to blame Charlie for his own murder.  “Did you have any issues, now in hindsight, over some of the things that Charlie Kirk said?” Couric asked Fetterman.  When the senator responded with compassion for Charlie’s family and pointed out that “engaging in debate would never justify what’s happened,” Couric nonetheless insisted, “I think some people might say Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric was extreme. ... People think his words lead to violence.”  

Breaking news, Katie: During the height of the civil rights movement, people worried that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words would lead to violence, too.  His assassination did not dispel the truth of his message.  The same is true of Charlie.

When famous “reporters” such as Couric so conspicuously work to justify a leftist-inspired political assassination, non-leftists pay attention.  As one social media account , “Charlie was a moderate Christian conservative.  If Katie thinks he ‘deserved’ this because of his beliefs, she thinks we ALL deserve the same thing.”  A lot of non-leftist Americans have realized over the last two months that leftists want them dead.  

For the last ten years, they’ve watched Antifa domestic terrorists burn down businesses, threaten drivers, and perpetrate all kinds of violence against random American citizens.  Seeing this organized terrorism on computer screens, many non-leftists could effectively compartmentalize these incidents of violence and destruction as the actions of revolutionary Marxists and militant Democrats. 

After Charlie’s assassination, however, non-leftists witnessed the publicized glee of ordinary Democrats across the country.  Teachers, nurses, and even therapists felt no shame in expressing happiness over Charlie’s murder.  Government bureaucrats laughed about Charlie’s death without any fear that they might lose their jobs.  A music instructor in Pennsylvania recently  a video in which she cruelly gives Charlie’s wife, Erika, “acting notes” so that the widow’s grief will appear more “convincing.”  These psychopathic jeers have continued for two whole months. 

Rather than being horrified at the public responses of so many leftist Americans to the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, Katie Couric apparently believes that Charlie deserved his fate.  When such a famous corporate news face seems genuinely amenable to assassinating Americans for their political speech, even people who normally ignore politics notice how dangerously divided the country has become.

For non-political, non-leftist Americans, Charlie’s murder has been an exclamation point to the steady rise of organized political violence during the last decade.  After a deranged leftist tried to assassinate an entire baseball team of Republicans from the House and Senate in 2017, non-political Americans hoped that the shocking event would help to cool the temperature in Washington.  Just as soon as Democrat Party leaders did a little bipartisan kumbaya routine for the cameras, however, we got the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots of 2020.  

Even though those violent riots killed several dozen Americans and caused more property damage than any other insurrection in U.S. history, the Democrat Party euphemistically defended the mayhem and bloodshed as a “summer of love” for Americans’ civil rights.  While cities burned, the corporate news media warned Americans that the violence would get much worse unless Joe Biden “won” the 2020 election.  In this way, “journalists” and politicians openly threatened Americans as they headed to the polls.

After claiming the presidency, Democrats did not let up.  Instead, they used the DOJ and FBI to hunt down and harass political opponents.  Democrat-engineered lawfare that had been ramping up since Obama was in the White House went into overdrive as leftists persecuted non-leftists with abandon.  Aside from years of politically motivated prosecutions, however, Democrats continued to call non-leftist Americans “fascists” and “Nazis.”  By 2024, it was little surprise to anyone paying attention that leftist-inspired assassins would attempt to murder President Trump.  

What was a surprise for many non-political Americans, however, was that such near-historic assassination attempts did not sufficiently convince Democrats that their violent rhetoric had become unarguably dangerous for the nation.  Within moments of the attempted assassination of President Trump in Pennsylvania last summer, Democrat politicians and their allies in the press were already downplaying the event or pretending that the shooting had been faked (even as fire chief Corey Comperatore lay dead).  Rather than taking a moment to consider how close the country had come to a potentially civil war-triggering murder of a major national figure, leftists publicly regretted that the assassin had failed.  Random leftists took to social media platforms to complain about the shooter’s aim.

After all the years of Democrat riots, lawfare, and violence, the near-murder of President Trump reminded non-leftist voters what was at stake in the 2024 election.  Even then, however, the average non-political American tried to mentally separate the attempted murder of a national politician from the way ordinary leftists viewed ordinary non-leftists in the United States.  American politics, many told themselves, had gotten entirely out of hand, but surely cooler heads would eventually prevail.  

Charlie Kirk’s murder ended that psychologically comforting delusion for good.  When a young man with a young family is killed in the prime of his life, people sit up and take notice.  When an American is assassinated for his political convictions, otherwise non-political Americans wake up from their apathetic slumber.  When random leftists celebrate murder across social media platforms and mock a young widow’s suffering, even Americans who desperately wish to get along with everyone realize that the country is in peril.  

Two months after the leftist-inspired political assassination of Charlie Kirk, it is clear that the country is not healing in any form.  Leftists continue to call for political violence.  Democrat politicians continue to call non-leftists “fascists” and “Nazis.”  Democrat-aligned “journalists” continue to blame Charlie for his own murder.  There is a growing awareness in this country that the whole house of cards precariously holding civil society together could come crashing down with one more violent riot or political assassination.  

What happens then is anyone’s guess.  But formerly non-political Americans know that the country’s domestic peace is in serious jeopardy.  Too many Americans seek and cheer violence right now.  Too many Americans are eager for civil war.  If we cannot lower the temperature in this country, Charlie’s murder will presage an unbearable slaughter to come.



Entertainment and podcast thread for Nov 18

 


It's fun to theorize, even if you're almost never right.

Marjorie Taylor Greene's Transformation Into Costco Liz Cheney Is Complete


Don't fall in love with politicians.

Now, I say that, but I'm also a die-hard President Trump supporter who would be willing to support a third term, and maybe a fourth. That doesn't mean Trump hasn't disappointed me. He and his administration bungled the Epstein story, which became one they couldn't sweep under the rug. I'm also not happy he sided with the gun control lobby on banning bump stocks. The point is, at some point, these folks will disappoint you. And my, how the mighty have fallen when it comes to Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-14).

What the hell happened? I feel like the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers got her. She was wild, fun, and unapologetically anti-Democratic Party. She hurled hand grenades and threw firebombs daily at the woke Left. Now, she seems to be laying the groundwork for a party switch. She's apologized for being conservative and attacking the progressive agenda.

She's been a thorn in the side of the Trump White House on the Epstein Files and whipped out a flamethrower on the GOP leadership during the Schumer Shutdown that Democrats caused. Majorie, I guess, supported Democrats' push for $1.5 trillion in additional spending for illegal alien healthcare benefits and NPR funding. 


The Georgia Republican has gone on The View to expound more—it's a mess. President Trump called her a traitor and rescinded his endorsement of her reelection bid, a remarkable feat. Do you know how badly you need to screw up to have that happen to you?

Greene's not the first or the last Republican to transform into "anti" versions of themselves. It's sad; I like the crazies for lack of a better term. They're fun to cover, and we need attack dogs, like MTG used to be. Is this fallout all because Trump's team told her not to run for the U.S. Senate in Georgia? That seems to be the rumor on the street, where the president's political crew noted that MTG would get clobbered by Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff. 


Whatever the case, it was fun while it lasted, MTG. Your duels with Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) were epic, but now we've got to turn our back on you.





It Is Transparently Obvious: MAGA Does Not Understand How Republicans Operate


For the better part of this year, I have been noticing publicly on the Twitter, and on these pages, how the financial interests of the global/political establishment elite, and a host of affiliated Technocrats formerly outlined as the Sea Island group, seemingly have been working an operation to divide MAGA.

That operation is to separate President Trump from his support base.

President Trump has been navigating this dynamic, sometimes failing -not surprisingly given the scope of the issue- yet keeping his focus on the larger objective, the ‘ultimate solutions’ approach he is known for.

ISRAEL – To wit, many people have criticized President Trump for being too close to Israeli interests. As if those voices do not understand the scale of institutional interests toward maintaining foreign influence in U.S. politics (perhaps many don’t).  [Ex. If Ron DeSantis had won in ’24, right now we would be talking about forward operating USA bases in Iran]

Perhaps people criticized President Trump for attending the Knesset legislative session of Israel, yet did not notice the totally Trumpian move of calling out Mariam Adelson during those same remarks. In essence, President Trump candidly spotlit the very nature of the thing that people are upset about.

Trust me, you can tell from the nervous responses the local audience didn’t miss Trump’s words, nor what they meant. They were considerably jaw agape at the brutal honesty. That boss move did not win Trump any benefits there – RJC lack of attendance notwithstanding.

There is a reason Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and Indonesia support President Trump as the ONLY one who can organize the solution to the Gaza conflict long-term.  They have said they cannot see anyone else delivering a solution to this generational problem.  Those middle east nations trust the humanitarian agenda of President Trump specifically, because he is strategically and objectively detached from the narrow agenda of Israel.

On the H1B visas. No one wants to see H1B visa abuse; yet, do we accept the scale and scope of the tech sector in exploiting/using this system?  Have we forgotten Elon Musk’s December 2024 statements, or those of Vivek Ramaswamy, which highlighted the tech REDLINE position?

Do we understand the tenuous nature of the coalition candidate Trump put together to defeat the professional UniParty, which included the same very influential tech leaders as lukewarm allies to MAGA?  Big Tech is border averse, institutionally minded globalists, i.e. in traditionally comfortable relations with Democrats.

On Chinese university students.  Again, no one wants to see American kids stopped from attending colleges and universities.  Those 300,000 per year foreign students are paying out-of-state tuition, in full and in cash, and while the system might be in need of change, President Trump is not proposing anything that doesn’t already exist.  600,000 student visas per 2-year-term is the current enrollment rate, not an increase.

On 50-year-mortgages.  No one wants to see first-time homebuyers ripped off; but again, optimal solutions.  No one is going to stay in a home for 50-years; the average is seven.  This is the way for young people to afford a smaller payment and begin to build some equity or at least own something.  It’s an option, not a requirement. It’s an alternative that might help some people afford to move in an ongoing housing crisis.

For Banks and Financial Interests.  Many people are upset about President Trump having working dinners with bankers and members of high finance.  Yet, if President Trump collapsed the U.S. dollar, we’d never hear the end of it – nor survive as a prospering nation through the ramifications of it.  President Trump is trying to build a strong domestic economy for the U.S, while still maintaining the dollar as the best alternative for global investment and trade currency.

Trump is the national steward for your economic way of life, and without him there would be little to no hope for long-term stability.  As much as you might decry President Trump for focusing attention to the globe, without that effort our financial house would shrink rather quickly.

This brings me to the most frustrating part of watching Republicans that most MAGA-minded folks are missing.

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS – We are watching the professional Republican apparatus going through a state level congressional redistricting effort, using the statistics from the 2024 electoral coalition that President Trump delivered.  Every state is using the MAGA voting bloc as the baseline for their congressional redistricting.

Those votes, and as a consequence, those districts, are of such a significant scale and Republican Party benefit, only because candidate Donald Trump delivered those voices to the polls.  However, these are the same professionals within the Republican Party apparatus who are trying to split the MAGA coalition.

Think about how Machiavellian and typically Republican this operation is.

The Republicans are using the votes that Trump delivered to enhance their state Republican voices, while simultaneously trying to break apart the coalition that gives them the ability to scale up their Republican influence.   I doubt you could ever show me a more perfect encapsulation of how the abuser/abused relationship works in politics.

Any one of these hot button issues, or a combination therein, might be the trigger point for you to withdraw support.  Okay, I get your frustration.  However, each one of these issues is a smaller part of a coalition of support that delivered the result in 2024.   There’s a bunch of special interests I do not support, yet I fully understand why Trump may take a different approach toward that issue.

Do I still support President Trump?

Yes, because the alternative is a Republican.


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Did Moderate Dems Have an Epiphany? Poll Says They Admit 'Extreme Political Rhetoric' Played Part in Kirk Death


RedState 

Everyone remembers where they were when they heard that a crazed leftist had shot and killed Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk. The fact that a political assassination like this could happen in America in 2025 is still almost too much for many Americans to comprehend. But like most tragedies, some good has come from it. More conservatives are no longer afraid to speak out about their beliefs. Those on the left had refused to entertain any thought that the violent rhetoric they use played a role in Kirk's assassination. But a new poll shows that some of those lefties might be owning up to it.

A new NBC News poll released on Monday surveyed 1,000 registered U.S. voters from October 24 to 28 via telephone interviews and text messages, and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. The poll showed that 54 percent of Democrats said that “extreme political rhetoric used by some in the media and by political leaders was an important contributor." In addition, 73 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of independent voters agreed. The poll also showed that another 28 percent said they “feel more this [Kirk’s assassination] is an incident caused by a disturbed person.” Surprisingly, just four percent said they felt that both extreme rhetoric and a disturbed person were the result of Kirk's assassination.

It is a pretty dark contrast to an earlier Public First poll taken on November 3, which showed that 24 percent of Americans said there are circumstances in which political violence could be justified. Thankfully, 64 percent said that political violence is unacceptable at any time. But in an era of new blood in the Democrat Party and on the left, those numbers rose sharply when young people were asked about political violence. One in three people under age 45 said there are circumstances where political violence is acceptable. 

So, how are we coming to such alarming numbers of Americans feeling justified in attacking, or worse, those they disagree with? For one, something Republicans and conservatives should point out more is the fact that we are on at least the second generation of young people who start life being indoctrinated in the public school system. Almost from kindergarten through their college years, young people are no longer taught how to think, but what to think. If they are confronted with a viewpoint that is different from their own programmed one, they literally have no idea how to respond, and they lash out. 

But in the same Democrat Party era of new blood comes the fact that much of that new blood, along with a good portion of the party dinosaurs the new blood is attempting to purge, gives the left-wing violence a wink and a nod. When horrific events like Charlie Kirk's assassination happen, they go on the required cable news shows and give the also-required finger-wagging. But then talk about how the violent political rhetoric happens "on both sides." It will take more Republican senators and Congress members like Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), who called out Democrats' and the left's "whataboutism" in no uncertain terms back in October.

But the biggest problem as the 2026 midterm elections near: Democrats are not going to stop their violent political rhetoric. They need their far-left-wing base as ginned up as possible until 2026. The fact that 55 percent of the Public First Poll said that not only do they expect an increase in political violence in the future, but they also expect a political candidate will be assassinated in the next five years is downright chilling. The left will continue to demonstrate what we already know about them: that the ends, however violent they might be, justify the means.


GOP Should Be More Concerned About Congress’s Failure To Deliver Trump’s Mandate Than Infighting


Republicans have a majority 
and are doing nothing with it.



In March of 2010, Democrats passed Obamacare. Not because it was a brilliant policy — 15 years later the program is about to fail unless the government subsidizes it — but because Democrats had a majority in both the House and Senate and were willing to actually use it to push their agenda.

How are Republicans using their time in the majority? Fighting each other instead of fighting for the American people.

For the past month, Republicans have been fighting one another over whatever the outrage of the day is — Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and now, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Each week it feels like a new circular firing squad, and each week that Republicans fight each other is another week in which Republican leadership gets to skate by having not done anything.

But with less than a year left until the midterms, Republicans are squandering their majority despite a host of issues that could use addressing.

Start with Obamacare, for example. Democrats finally agreed to end the Democrat-led government shutdown after they swept some off-year elections. Senate Majority Leader John Thune promised Democrats that he would hold a vote on dramatically increasing the Obamacare subsidies. The vote can be held, but Republicans must use their majority to vote no for a host of reasons, not least of which is the fact that, without the government subsidizing the program, it likely fails. As Christopher Jacobs wrote in these pages, a bailout for Obamacare “would also contain taxpayer funding for plans that cover abortion and transgender medical interventions many Americans find objectionable.”

In the meantime, Republicans should be figuring out other ways to get us out of this mess: What can Congress do to lower costs for Americans seeking health care in a way that doesn’t require the government to intervene? They’ve had 15 years to think on this. Let’s see something.

Another thing Republicans could and should do is pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. It’s basic legislation that would require prospective voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. Trump, for his part, did try to implement the same policy via an executive order, but a federal judge ruled the order unconstitutional, arguing Trump “lacks the authority to direct such changes.”

Of course, a bump in the road as such would not be a big deal if Republicans — in the majority of Congress — acted like they had the majority.

Republicans should also impeach activist judges who are actively usurping the authority of the executive. Since Trump took office, unelected, inferior court judges have issued dozens of nationwide injunctions and temporary restraining orders to thwart the president’s mandate. For example, when Trump tried to end a taxpayer-funded program to bankroll a transgender opera in Colombia — as pointed out in these pages by Mark Davis — an unelected, inferior court judge blocked him.

These sorts of usurpations piqued the interest of Sen. Chuck Grassley, who introduced the Judicial Relief Clarification Act of 2025. The legislation would, as described by Grassley’s office, “limit district courts to resolving the cases only between the parties before them.” Despite having a majority in the Senate and House, the legislation has still not been brought for a vote — and yes, lower court judges are still trying to thwart Trump’s agenda.

Let’s not forget the lack of Senate confirmation for Trump appointees. The Washington Post has a tracker showing that at this point in their terms Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden all had more Senate confirmations than Trump does.

Or take all the cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). All that work identifying waste, fraud, and abuse is entirely meaningless if Congress doesn’t codify the cuts and actually rein in spending. As The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood observed earlier in the year, “While many Republicans have been quick to glom onto DOGE and profess support for its work, few seem to be interested in actually stopping the wasteful spending that’s plagued the federal government for years.”

When Sen. Rand Paul introduced a measure to slash federal spending by $1.5 trillion, Republicans in the Senate sided with Democrats to defeat the amendment 76-24, as reported by Fleetwood.

In sum, the GOP-led Congress has failed both to put forward, defend, and enact a governing agenda in line with Trump’s campaign platform. Mired in its “chronic inability to follow its own appropriations process,” the legislative branch’s reliance on omnibus bills and continuing resolutions, along with its inability or unwillingness to craft marketable conservative legislation on many pressing issues, is disqualifying.

Perhaps this inaction is why Congress’s approval rating is only at 15 percent, according to a recent Gallup poll.

While a large cohort of the right is busy chasing clout by offering their opinions on controversies that pale in comparison to what’s at stake, the clock is ticking. We need a united base pushing GOP leaders like Speaker Mike Johnson and Sen. Majority Leader John Thune to start governing like they won. And the more pressure and emphasis we place on trivial, the less pressure we place on leadership to lead.



New Suit Seeks DOJ Records On Obama-Biden Official’s Role In Russiagate Cover-Up


Monaco reportedly ‘prevented Special Counsel Durham from releasing the 30-pp appendix to his final report b/c it implicated her old boss Obama.’



A good government group is seeking Justice Department records about a top official in the Obama and Biden administrations who reportedly blocked the release of key information about the Russia collusion hoax, The Federalist has learned.

In its Monday lawsuit, the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) requested the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel the DOJ to hand over documents related to Lisa Monaco‘s reported handling of the Durham appendix. As The Federalist previously reported, Monaco — who served as President Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser before later becoming President Biden’s deputy attorney general — was a “a key figure” behind the Biden administration’s lawfare against Donald Trump and its “Jan. 6 prosecutions.”

The “Durham appendix” is in reference to roughly 30 pages of documents that were a part of Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 investigative report into the origins of the debunked Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Declassified earlier this year, the appendix seemingly showed how the Hillary Clinton campaign laid the groundwork for pushing the false narrative that Trump sought to conspire with Moscow to steal the 2016 election — a lie which Obama’s intel agencies were more than willing to further with their Russia collusion investigations into the Republican candidate.

On July 31, 2025, RealClearInvestigations senior reporter Paul Sperry reported claims from sources who purportedly told him that, as Biden’s deputy AG, Monaco “prevented Special Counsel Durham from releasing the 30-pp appendix to his final report b/c it implicated her old boss Obama.” He further reported that during her time as Obama’s White House adviser, Monaco “attended [then-CIA Director John] Brennan’s fusion cell meetings +the Dec 9 2016 pow-wow to flip [the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment].”

As The Federalist previously reported, the 2017 ICA parroted the “key judgement” that Russia’s 2016 election interference was designed “to help President-elect Trump’s election chances.” Records declassified earlier this year by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, however, showed that that central claim was based on weak and uncorroborated intel — a fact known by Obama intel chiefs like Brennan, who insisted on it and other unsubstantiated intel’s inclusion in the ICA despite their unreliability.

Meanwhile, intelligence contradicting that “key judgement” was left out of the ICA.

In response to Sperry’s reporting about Monaco’s alleged role in blocking the release of the Durham appendix, CASA filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the DOJ on Aug. 31, 2025. The group asked that the agency forfeit any and all communications and records from April 21, 2021-July 1, 2023, involving Monaco and the Durham appendix, including “records of meeting requests, virtual meeting invitations, call logs and any chats in the relevant virtual platforms (e.g., Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, etc.), related to the Durham appendix.”

CASA further requested records pertaining to any communications Monaco may have had with legacy media outlets, the Executive Office of the President, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Obama Foundation.

“CASA is focused on public education, and all materials and information requested will be disseminated to the public for this purpose,” the Aug. 31 FOIA reads. “Thus, the disclosure of the requested records would not be to our primary benefit but would be to the primary benefit of the general public.”

In its Monday lawsuit, CASA claimed that it “received confirmation” from the DOJ that its FOIA had been “successfully submitted,” would be sent to the attorney general’s office and assigned a confirmation ID number. According to the good government group, however, “over 72 days have elapsed since the federal government received CASA’s request, yet DOJ has still not made a determination with respect to it.”

“DOJ has not produced responsive documents to CASA, has not communicated to CASA the scope of the documents it intends to produce or withhold — along with the reasons for any such withholding — and has not informed CASA of its ability to appeal any adverse portion of its determination,” the lawsuit reads. “Given these facts, DOJ has not met its statutory obligations to provide the requested records for the request.”

CASA has requested the D.C. District Court to order the DOJ to “produce, within ten days of the Court’s order, or by other such date as the Court deems appropriate, any and all non-exempt records responsive to [its] request and an index justifying the withholding of all or part of any responsive records withheld under claim of exemption.” The group further asked the court to award it “reasonable attorney’s fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred” throughout the legal battle, as well as “other such relief as the Court deems just and proper.”


Report: Biden Admin Hid Online Footprint Of Trump’s Would-Be Assassin


Without transparency, institutions like the FBI and the Department of Justice will continue to lose credibility with vast swathes of the American people.



The Biden administration hid critical information about Thomas Matthew Crooks — the person who shot President Donald Trump and three others in Butler, Pennsylvania — throughout the 2024 election, according to a report from the New York Post.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Biden appears to have knowingly lied to Congress, misled the American people, and, at best, was negligent in its duty to track Crooks after he reportedly made numerous statements about committing political violence and assassinations.

The NYP received information from a source showing that Crooks did have a history of significant online activity, despite then-Biden FBI Director Christopher Wray testifying that Crooks had no “online history that pointed to motive or political ideology.” Wray also attempted to downplay Trump’s being shot by suggesting he may have been hit with a piece of shrapnel from his podium, despite no evidence of that whatsoever.

Paul Abbate, former FBI deputy director under Wray, seemed to muddy the water even more, telling Congress that some social media accounts connected to Crooks “appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature.”

That is true, but the posts Abbate was referring to — which appear to paint Crooks in some sort of right-wing extremism light — were quite a bit older than posts showing a left-wing, anti-Trump ideology Crooks seems to have adopted over time.

Crooks’ online footprint appears to show someone who has always been interested in political and mass violence, who grew to openly hate Trump and called for “terrorism style attacks” and assassinations. He also seemingly became involved with “furry” fetish platforms — often a sexual deviancy associated closely with gender ideology. Furry fetishes and transgender ideology are more and more common among those who commit left-wing violence, and the person who allegedly assassinated Charlie Kirk in September was apparently immersed in both.

In light of Crooks’ online threats, it seems impossible that he was not known to the FBI before he attempted to assassinate Trump, and yet his online footprint was completely omitted from the final report about the shooting released in December 2024.

It is important that the American people get answers about Crooks and his attempted assassination of a former president who, by all serious accounts at the time, was the leader in the presidential race. But it is also important to keep in mind that, in addition to nearly killing Trump, Crooks’ bullets took the life of rallygoer Corey Comperatore and wounded rallygoers David Dutch and James Copenhaver. They and their families deserve answers too.

Crooks was 20 years old when he tried to assassinate Trump. He was shot dead by the Secret Service on the scene, but not before he was able to fire eight bullets.

His online history goes back at least to when he was 15, showing a political evolution from Trump supporter (though violent) to left-wing terrorist. The source cited by the NYP found 17 online accounts on platforms YouTube, Snapchat, Venmo, Zelle, GroupMe, Discord, Google Play, Quizlet, Chess.com, and Quora.

Crooks’ “radicalization, violent rhetoric and obsession with political violence were all documented under his real name,” the NYP source stated. “The threat wasn’t hidden.”

And, far from the all-too-common “lone wolf with no discernible motive” narrative peddled by officials after acts of mass violence or political violence, Crooks’ political development was out in the open for anyone to see — and for the FBI to monitor.

Crooks’ uncovered activity took place primarily on YouTube, with 737 comments made publicly from one account created on Jan. 14, 2019, and suspended the day after the assassination attempt, July 14, 2024.

In July 2019 he began calling for the deaths of immigrants and members of the Democrat Party, stating, “I hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman who don’t deserve anything this country has given them.”

In December of that year, he stated, “MURDER THE DEMOCRATS.”

But Crooks appears to have adopted a violent left-wing ideology in the weeks after that post. On Jan. 23, 2020, Crooks posted his first criticism of Trump in response to a video of Jonathan Turley, a law professor, talking about Trump’s first impeachment.

“Keep in mind the only reason we may know about any of this is because of Trump’s stupidity,” he wrote.

Soon after, on Feb. 26, he started criticizing Trump supporters, too, stating, “How can you people call others sheep, but you are do [too] brainwashed to realize how dumb you are. … I mean literally you guys sound like a cult at times.”

He called Trump a “racist” the same day.

Crooks criticized the Trump administration’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic in April, and over the summer started posting more violent comments.

“IMO the only way to fight the gov is with terrorism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building and set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to assassinate them,” he posted Aug. 5. “Any sort of head-to-head fight is suicide and even ambush/surprise attacks likely aren’t going to end well. A large portion of the war will also be propaganda/information wars — both sides will want people to join them, and a big deciding factor in wars is often which side has more popular support for them.”

For his PayPal account, Crooks appears to have avoided using his real name, utilizing the alias “Rod Swanson,” the name of a former FBI agent who was in charge of investigations in Nevada during the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.

Swanson also served on former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s security detail, and has ties to Pennsylvania, having been a firearms instructor there, according to the NYP.

Despite telling the NYP he had no idea who Crooks or his family were, Swanson did offer that it would be shocking if the FBI did not know about Crooks, given his online activity.

“No matter how ridiculous the allegation, no matter if it’s COVID or not, somebody is going to knock on somebody’s door,” he told the outlet. “If they investigated that kid there’s a record of it and there’s an assessment that some leader made that this was not a threat or it rose to a level and they did something else.”

Swanson also said that if the FBI was aware of the PayPal account Crooks reportedly opened in his name, the agency almost certainly would have contacted him.

Crooks also used an alias on the platform DeviantArt, which hosts many people in the “furry” subculture. There, Crooks, under the usernames “epicmicrowave” and “theepicmicrowave,” identified with “they/them” pronouns and displayed an interest in images of cartoon characters wearing little clothing and “sporting muscle-bound male bodies and female heads,” the NYP stated.

Toward the end of Crooks’ online radicalism arc, before he apparently ceased activity completely leading up to the Butler shooting, Crooks came into contact with a person named “Willy Tepes,” who appears to be a member of a Norwegian neo-Nazi group.

Engaging with Crooks’ ideas, Tepes used a famous phrase from Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, “Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” It appears to have had an effect on Crooks, as he used it multiple times.

According to Tepes, posting on Oct. 5, 2025, American and Russian intelligence services had made contact with him. What remains unanswered, however, is whether Tepes’ encouragement had anything to do with Crooks ultimately pulling the trigger.

According to NYP, the FBI refuses to say whether it had any knowledge of Crooks prior to the assassination attempt, whether someone was tracking him, and if not, how that was possible given his online comments.

Days after the shooting, Biden’s FBI told Congress that it had no prior knowledge of the shooter, which is probably just as bad as knowing and doing nothing. One of the two is true, it seems, and the American people deserve to know which.

The Secret Service also claimed it had no idea who Crooks was before the shooting.

Whatever the answers are in this case, the American people have witnessed a pattern in recent years that many of the people who commit acts of violence were already known by the FBI or components of the government, including Parkland shooter Nikolas CruzBoston Marathon bomber Tamerlan TsarnaevOrlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, and others.

With this pattern, as well as the federal government’s pattern of keeping the American people in the dark about shooters, the Trump administration’s FBI must be as forthcoming as possible about Crooks.

Without such transparency, institutions like the FBI and, by association, the Department of Justice will continue to lose credibility with vast swathes of the American people.