In testimony before the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees on Tuesday, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said that "an account believed to be associated" with Donald Trump would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks had posted 700 comments in 2019 and 2020 with "anti-Semitic and anti-immigration" views.
"While the investigative team is still working to verify this account to determine if it did, in fact, belong to the shooter, we believe it important to share and note it today, particularly given the general absence of other information to date from social media that reflect on the shooter's potential motive and mindset," Abbate testified.
A post to X on Tuesday by Gab CEO Andrew Torba flatly contradicts Abbate's sworn testimony.
"This is not consistent with Gab's understanding of the shooter's motives based on an Emergency Disclosure Request ('EDR') we received from the FBI last week for the Gab account 'EpicMicrowave' which, based on the content of that EDR, the FBI appeared to think belonged to Thomas Crooks," Torba said. "The story is this: the account for which data was requested was, UNEQUIVOCALLY, pro-Biden and in particular pro-Biden's immigration policy."
"To the best of Gab's knowledge, as of 2021, Crooks was a pro-lockdown, pro-immigration, left-wing Joe Biden supporter," Torba added in his post.
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Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul charged during Tuesday's hearing that the feds' investigation of the Secret Service's failure to protect Trump on July 13 has also been a failure as had been the corporate media's function which in years gone by was to question authority:
"Eighteen days ago, a would-be assassin managed to climb onto a roof 400ft from the stage where the former president and leading presidential candidate, Donald Trump, was speaking. The assassin's bullet struck President Trump, nearly missing a fatal blow thanks to a last-minute head turn. ....
"Yet the media has shamefully moved on to other stories, and Google has been caught trying to suppress iconic images of a bloody Donald Trump, images showcasing the resolve of our nation in the face of the attack. But the American people have not forgotten, and we will not forget. There is no question that this was a monumental failure by the Secret Service. They had one job, and they failed. We know that. What remains unclear is who specifically failed, how they failed, and what must be done to ensure that something like this never happens again.
"America deserves to know that those responsible for this failure are frankly not going to be in charge of securing the upcoming Democrat national convention. We need to know that someone's been placed on suspension, that someone won't be in charge of the next Donald Trump rally. ....
"This past Friday, my investigative team went to Pennsylvania to meet with local law enforcement and document the scene. One of the concerning things my team was told is that no one from the Secret Service has talked to them since the shooting. I don't know how an investigation into what failed can be conducted without talking to the officers and agencies who were relied upon to do much of the work."
In a Truth Social post, Trump also touched on the suppression of the iconic photos:
Facebook has just admitted that it wrongly censored the Trump “attempted assassination photo,” and got caught. Same thing for Google. They made it virtually impossible to find pictures or anything about this heinous act. Both are facing BIG BACKLASH OVER CENSORSHIP CLAIMS. Here we go again, another attempt at RIGGING THE ELECTION!!! GO AFTER META AND GOOGLE. LET THEM KNOW WE ARE ALL WISE TO THEM, WILL BE MUCH TOUGHER THIS TIME. MAGA2024!
It sure looks like the FBI leadership engaged in perjury … https://t.co/tU1M7fs9lj
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2024
