Thomas Crooks Used ‘They/Them’ Pronouns

A man who tried to assassinate Donald Trump may have identified as non-binary and been radicalised online, his social media accounts suggest.

Digital profiles linked to Thomas Crooks, whose bullet grazed Trump’s ear after he tried to shoot him from a rooftop during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July, suggest he used “they/them” pronouns.

Crooks, who was shot dead at the scene by a Secret Service agent, killed an audience member and injured two others in the attack.

Donald Trump raises his fist after being shot by Thomas Crooks at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13 2024

The 20-year-old registered Republican, whose background has remained something of a mystery, reportedly had two accounts, “epicmicrowave” and “theepicmicrowave,” on the website DeviantArt.

The platform, where amateur artists can share and critique work, also has an active “furry” community. A furry is a person with an interest in anthropomorphic animals that is sometimes sexual.

Crooks’ activity appears to show he used non-binary pronouns and had an interest in scantily clad cartoon characters with muscular male physiques and female heads, according to the New York Post.

The discovery is the most detailed insight into Crooks’ background, which has become the subject of various conspiracy theories.

On Thursday, Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News presenter, accused the FBI of covering up Crooks’ digital footprint and published what he claimed was evidence of Crooks’ journey from Trump supporter to radical Leftist.

The FBI has maintained that Crooks acted alone in the plot.

Yet Carlson claims Crooks interacted with a member of the Nordic Resistance Movement, the Norwegian neo-Nazi group, on YouTube.

The user, Willy_Tepes, appeared to encourage Crooks to commit political violence, Carlson claims.

Writing to Crooks on Aug 4 2020, the account said: “If a gun and a badge is all that is needed, then authority obviously comes from the barrel of a gun. We have more guns than they do ;)”

“There is no way we can avoid a war at this point, so you just better get used to the idea,” the Willy_Tepes account added.

The Maoist phrase, “Political power comes from the barrel of a gun,” was repeated by the gunman several times.

Elsewhere, Crooks’ political views seemed to shift dramatically towards radical Left-wing ideology around early 2020.

In one of his YouTube comments in January of that year, Crooks reportedly attacked Trump for his “stupidity” and mocked his supporters for sounding like a “cult”.

He is then said to have called for anti-Trump supporters to conduct “terrorism-style attacks” against the US government.

The political U-turn and interest in gender ideology bears a striking similarity to that of Tyler Robinson, Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin, and other Left-leaning terror attacks conducted in recent months.

Robinson is charged with murdering the Republican podcaster and top Trump ally by firing a single bullet from a rooftop 130 metres from where he was hosting a debate at Utah Valley University in September.

The alleged assassin confessed to shooting the conservative influencer to his trans lover, according to text messages recovered by detectives.

In August, transgender gunman Robin Westman, fired dozens of rounds of bullets through the stained glass windows of Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, killing two children.

Responding to Carlson’s claims, Kash Patel, the FBI director, said the officer had conducted a thorough investigation on Crooks, which included collecting extensive amounts of online data.

“The investigation, conducted by over 480 FBI employees, revealed Crooks had limited online and in-person interactions, planned and conducted the attack alone, and did not leak or share his intent to engage in the attack with anyone,” he wrote on X.

Former classmates described a bespeckled Crooks as an “outcast” who was bullied daily.