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Judicial Watch says it has forced the release of 48 heavily redacted FBI pages that reveal a startling detail: a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy exchanged emails with Thomas Matthew Crooks in the days before the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt at the Trump rally. That revelation, dumped into the public record by Judicial Watch after a FOIA lawsuit, is the kind of unspooling of facts Americans deserve but too often don’t get from a timid mainstream press. This isn’t trivia — it’s a lead that demands answers about what local and federal agents knew and when they knew it.
The newly released FOIA documents and supporting Judicial Watch files show more than just an email exchange; they include interview summaries, redacted notes and operational fragments that paint a messier picture of the lead-up to the shooting. Among the materials are law enforcement summaries that describe items recovered from Crooks, including a small gray device taken from his pocket, and records tying him to pre-event activity near the rally site. Left unanswered are plain questions about whether signals were missed, warnings were ignored, or if information was minimized to protect a narrative.
Contrast that with the FBI’s public posture: in media briefings the bureau repeatedly reported it had not identified a motive or any co-conspirators, and painted the attack as the act of a lone gunman rather than part of a wider plot. Americans ought to be skeptical when redacted records and released snippets seem to contradict the certainty of official press lines, especially when those same records show activity and communications that merit real scrutiny. The public has a right to know if investigative seams were stitched together hastily to protect appearances.
Judicial Watch’s releases also resurrect earlier FOIA finds showing that law enforcement broadcast warnings about an “unknown male acting suspiciously” in the area before the shooting, suggesting there were opportunities to intervene that were not acted upon. If local radios were warning of a suspicious person and the chain of response faltered, that is not merely bureaucratic incompetence — it’s a national security failure that put a former president and countless citizens at risk. Conservatives who prize law and order should demand a forensic timeline of every call, every alarm and every decision made that evening.
There’s a growing public rift between watchdog groups like Judicial Watch and the FBI that can be heard in conservative media interviews, including commentary from Judicial Watch allies and attorneys who argue the bureau has been slow-walking records and sanitizing uncomfortable facts. That friction is healthy when it forces transparency; it’s how free citizens hold institutions to account when those institutions prefer secrecy. Attorney Christina Bobb’s discussion with conservative hosts about the case highlighted the distrust many Americans feel toward federal agencies that seem more interested in protecting reputations than uncovering truth.
Worse still, congressional filings and hearings showed the Secret Service was “aware of threat” minutes before the shooting, raising urgent questions about preparedness, command-and-control and interagency information-sharing on that day. This is not the time for platitudes — investigators, from local sheriff’s offices up through the federal chain, must be forced to produce unredacted timelines and clear explanations for every failure and every omission. The American people deserve accountability, and Congress should lean on every agency until we have it.
Judicial Watch’s litigation and these FOIA drops are exactly the sort of civic muscle this country needs when government opacity endangers public safety and public trust. Patriots who love this country should stand with watchdogs pushing for raw records, and demand that prosecutors and oversight committees follow the paper trail to its end. If there was negligence, incompetence, or something darker, it must be exposed, prosecuted and prevented from ever happening again.
