Newly released FBI interview documents give the first detailed account of the childhood and upbringing of Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024. The records, based on interviews with his father Matthew, were handed to US Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley as part of an ongoing investigation into the shooting, and portray Crooks as an unusually quiet, socially isolated young man whose family sensed something was different about him from birth but never suspected he posed a danger.

Matthew Crooks told investigators his son rarely laughed, was hard to understand, and that the two "never really had a father/son bond," with the family suspecting he may have had ADHD. He described incidents such as pushing his son to tears after a fish-tank outburst, and said Thomas grew increasingly withdrawn through school, eventually scoring 1,500 on his SATs without studying. An interest in firearms took hold when he joined a gun club during the pandemic, progressing over four to five years from being unable to hit paper targets to becoming a proficient shooter who practised at increasing distances. Crooks fired eight rounds from an AR-15-style rifle at the July 2024 rally, wounding Trump's ear, killing rally-goer Corey Comperatore, and injuring two others.