LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Former President Trump has agreed to be interviewed as a witness in the assassination attempt against him. The FBI says it will talk with Trump as it investigates the shooting at a campaign rally just over two weeks ago in Pennsylvania.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas is covering this investigation. Ryan, good morning.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What's the FBI hoping to learn?
LUCAS: Well, this is what's known as a victim interview. It's standard procedure. The FBI says it wants to get Trump's perspective on the shooting - what he observed that day, experienced just like any other witness. And the bureau says they contacted him about doing this interview, and that he's agreed to sit down with them.
INSKEEP: I just have to note, Ryan, this is a man who is under federal indictment in entirely separate cases for the 2020 election and for classified documents. Do the agents agree not to ask him about any of that stuff?
LUCAS: These sorts of victim interviews will be limited to the events of July 13 and what he saw that day.
INSKEEP: OK. So they're focused on the assassination attempt, and this is part of the broader investigation. What has the FBI been learning in that investigation?
LUCAS: Well, it says that it's interviewed more than 450 people at this point. That includes folks who knew the shooter, Thomas Crooks - his family, co-workers, former teachers, classmates. Remember, Crooks was just 20 years old. The FBI says Crooks was highly intelligent, but a bit of a loner. His social circle was limited basically to his immediate family. He was interested in shooting, first as a hobby. That later morphed into formal firearms training.
And at this point, the FBI says it still has not determined a motive, but it says it does believe, from what it's found so far, that Crooks appears to have planned carefully ahead of the Trump rally and taken actions to try to hide his activities.
INSKEEP: What was he trying to hide?
LUCAS: The FBI says Crooks used aliases to buy things online - and not just any old things, but things related to guns and explosives. So starting in early 2023, Crooks made 25 gun-related purchases online. And then, in the first half of this year, he bought precursor chemicals - basically, the ingredients for making homemade bombs - and he did so on six occasions - ultimately used them in two explosive devices that were found in his vehicle. He, of course, didn't detonate those. So that is new. Investigators say that this is what points to careful planning, concealment on Crooks' part.
But we also learned more about what the FBI has seen on his cellphones, computer, his online search history, and that includes that he looked up information related to power plants, to mass shootings, homemade bombs. And he also looked up information on the attempted assassination earlier this year of Slovakia's prime minister.
INSKEEP: I'm amazed that, after all that planning, he ultimately just improvised his way into a position where he could fire from a rooftop at the former president. Has the FBI answered any questions about how that could have happened?
LUCAS: Well, we got the most detailed timeline yet from the FBI on what Crooks was doing the day of the shooting, particularly in the immediate run-up to it. The FBI says that, at 5:56 p.m. - so 15 minutes before Crooks fired on Trump from the rooftop - that Crooks was seen walking on the ground with a backpack. So he wasn't on the roof at that point. Investigators say they think he climbed piping on the side of the building to get up onto the roof. And then at 6:08, he's seen walking across the roof to get to his final firing position.
Three minutes later, a policeman - and we've heard about this - was lifted up to the roof, sees Crooks. Crooks points the gun at the cop, who immediately drops back down to the ground. And the FBI now says it was just 25 to 30 seconds after that that Crooks fired eight rounds before being killed by a countersniper.
Now, as for the security failings that day, the FBI is not focused on that. There are other investigations. The Secret Service director and a senior FBI official are testifying about that before Congress today.
INSKEEP: NPR's Ryan Lucas, thanks for the update - really appreciate it.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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