An online gaming account that featured an ominous message about the day of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was not connected to the shooter, two senior law enforcement officials told NBC News on Monday.
At a congressional briefing last Wednesday, U.S. lawmakers were told that the account on the Steam platform was associated with the shooter, Thomas Crooks, and that the message had hinted he would be in the news in the coming days, two sources familiar with the briefing said.
But the account that posted the message was determined to be a hoax after further investigation, two senior law enforcement officials said Monday.
FBI Director Christopher Wray is expected to testify before Congress this week and will likely provide the latest on the investigation.
Last week, the two senior law enforcement officials told NBC News that the FBI was working to determine the authenticity of the Steam account and whether Crooks had made the post.
GOP senators left Wednesday’s briefing deeply unsatisfied, with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, calling for new leadership at the Secret Service after the meeting.
“Continuity of operations is paramount during a critical incident and U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has no intentions to step down,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in response to the meeting.
“She deeply respects members of Congress and is fiercely committed to transparency in leading the Secret Service through the internal investigation and strengthening the agency through lessons learned in these important internal and external reviews.”
A Steam user profile seen by NBC News used the name Thomas M. Crooks, but it appears that the profile’s handle was changed from a previous username the day after the shooting, according to an archive of the profile collected by a website that tracks Steam user pages.
The profile also featured a widely circulated picture of Crooks as its avatar and has language that was reported that appeared to foreshadow the attack.
The profile, which has been active since May 2023, previously went by “Blubber,” “Bubbles” and other usernames, according to the website, SteamID. It was not clear when the language about the attack was added.
Crooks was killed on July 13 at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was clipped in the ear and was inches away from a fatal wound.
Investigators say they are still looking for what might have motivated Crooks to shoot at him. Investigators looked into his internet history and found that he made searches this month specific to Trump, a rally and the Democratic National Committee, according to a senior U.S. law enforcement official.
Crooks was a registered Republican but also made a $15 donation to the Progressive Turnout Project the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021, records showed.
UPDATE (July 22, 2024, 10:25 ET): Two senior law enforcement officials on Monday told NBC News that an account on the Steam gaming platform did not belong to the shooter in the Trump assassination attempt, Thomas Crooks. NBC News previously reported that lawmakers were told in a Congressional hearing that the account belonged to Crooks, according to two sources familiar with the briefing.
