National Guard Shooting Suspect Came From Afghanistan Through Biden Program
A 2022 DHS report concedes the government may have 'paroled individuals into the United States who pose a risk to national security and the safety of local communities.'A 2022 DHS report concedes the government may have 'paroled individuals into the United States who pose a risk to national security and the safety of local communities.'Massie: FBI threatened his staff if he didn’t ‘play ball’ over pipe-bomb investigation
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said an FBI official threatened to open a criminal investigation on one of his staff over his persistent investigation and questioning on the Jan. 6 pipe bombs.
An FBI official threatened to open a criminal investigation on one of Massie’s staff “if we didn’t straighten up [and] play ball,” Massie told Blaze News investigative reporter Steve Baker in an interview broadcast on Matt Kibbe’s “Free the People” podcast and posted to X.
‘Even he understood that was not a good look. Probably illegal.’
“I’m going to say this here on camera because it’s important. ... He said ... ‘We’re going to investigate one of your staff for fraud,’” Massie quoted the unnamed FBI official as saying. “And he told another one of my staff this: ‘If you guys don’t straighten up, you know, if you want to play hardball, if this is how you want to play it’ or something like that, ‘this member of your staff is going to get criminally investigated for fraud’ — a very specific threat.”
Massie declined to identify the official he says levied the threat, but said he did complain about it to FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.
“I told Bongino, I said, ‘One of your guys is threatening my guys with an FBI investigation if we don’t do what you want.’ And he [Bongino] said, ‘I’ll take care of that.’ ’Cause even he understood that was not a good look. Probably illegal.”
Massie said he later received a “non-apology” text from the official that said, “‘I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.’”
“He didn’t apologize. He was unrepentant, let's say, really.”
Massie has been the most aggressive member of Congress investigating the pipe bombs found behind the Capitol Hill Club at 12:43 p.m. on Jan. 6 and under a park bench on the southwest side of the Democratic National Committee building 22 minutes later. In the same interview with Baker, Massie also disclosed that recent Blaze News reporting has caused him to be “99% certain” that some U.S. Capitol Police officials had a role in the planting of the pipe bombs found on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I went from 90% certain that some Capitol Police were involved in the Jan. 6 pipe bomb to 95% certain, and now I'm at 99% certain after this new story that you put out this week,” Massie told Baker.
“I’m doing this on probability. The probability may even be higher than that.”
His comments reflect Blaze News’ recent reporting on a former Capitol Police officer who was an apparent forensic match to the bomb suspect, follow-up reporting on the manner in which the second device was discovered by plainclothes Capitol Police officers, and the stonewalling the congressman charges that he faced from Capitol Police in the course of his own investigation. Assistant Police Chief Ashan Benedict, whom Massie named as having specifically blocked his investigation, retired last week.
The Kentucky Republican also expressed frustration that FBI Director Kash Patel seems to have made little more progress than his predecessor, Director Christopher Wray. In an interview with Fox News earlier this month, as well as a follow-up with independent reporter Catherine Herridge, Patel promised that major developments are incoming, but was scant on details.
A CBS story published Tuesday cited three unidentified sources stating that the FBI had cleared the police officer who appeared to match a forensic gait analysis of the bomber, citing “an alibi: video of her playing with her puppies at the time the devices were placed.” Blaze News has sought to obtain independent confirmation of the FBI’s clearance based on the alibi.
Blaze News reported Nov. 8 on a forensic match to a former Capitol Police officer, based on a computer analysis of the hoodie-wearing alleged pipe bomber’s manner of walking compared to that of the person. The algorithm rated the person as a 94% match, while the intelligence analyst who ran the study for Blaze News put the match closer to 98%. The person has since denied any allegations, through her attorney.
Blaze News reported Nov. 18 that two Capitol Police counter-surveillance special agents sent out to look for more explosives after the discovery of the Capitol Hill Club device were seen on video going to the DNC building and to a nearby bush on the side of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute building.
Independent video investigator Armitas discovered that the hoodie-wearing suspect identified in 2021 as the pipe bomber stopped at the bush along a sidewalk on the north side of the CBCI building at 7:47 p.m. Jan. 5. The suspect sat cross-legged at the shrub and appeared to rummage through a backpack before leaning into the bush as if attempting to place something underneath.
The bomb suspect then stood up and walked back to the DNC bench, where a pipe bomb was placed at 7:54 p.m., according to choppy video released by the FBI.
‘He had a handler, who would often interrupt and answer questions for him.’
When Capitol Police dispatch warned of the Capitol Hill Club bomb at 12:43 p.m., two plainclothes Capitol Police special agents took a nearly six-minute drive to reach the Capitol Hill South Metro Station, one block from the Capitol Hill Club bomb scene. They then walked to the DNC building, passing the park bench the pipe bomb sat next to.
The agents continued walking until they reached an alley leading to the side of the CBCI building. Their movements were not captured on video because four Capitol Police security cameras that would have shown the DNC crime scene were turned away at key moments or pointed in another direction by default.
Massie’s office released video in July 2023 showing a man in dark clothing and a ball cap approaching a U.S. Secret Service SUV sitting in the driveway of the DNC building as part of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ security detail. Harris was inside the building when the pipe bomb was discovered.
Blaze News reported in January 2024 that this man was the plainclothes Capitol Police officer who discovered the pipe bomb under a bush at the foot of a park bench at the DNC building.
Following that story, Massie told Blaze News he was determined to interview the agents, but did not get much cooperation from Capitol Police. Massie referred to the agents as “man-bun guy” and “backpack guy” (the one who discovered the bomb).
‘Weirdest meeting’
The Capitol Police never made “backpack guy” available to the Massie, but on Jan. 30, 2024, they did eventually send his partner, accompanied by his commander, Benedict, to speak with the congressman in a meeting that was not recorded or transcribed.
“So they came over to my office, but not ‘backpack guy,’” Massie said. “’Man-bun guy’ came over, and he had a handler, who would often interrupt and answer questions for him.”
Two congressional investigators sat in on the meeting alongside Benedict, the police officer, and Massie. The congressman later described the interview as the “weirdest meeting in the world.”
“In the conversation with the counter-surveillance officer in my office, Ashan Benedict would frequently interrupt the officer, answer before the officer could reply, or qualify the officer’s answers,” Massie told Blaze News. “There was an effort by our committee staff to get Benedict to sit for a transcribed interview, but he successfully evaded that effort.”
Massie said he still wants to interview the officer who actually found the bomb, as well as his partner and Benedict. “Those need to be transcribed interviews. They need to be sworn in. I feel very strongly about that,” he said. “But the reality is the FBI should be doing these things.”
Massie said that after he reposted the Blaze News article on the gait analysis, Bongino called him to complain about two early persons of interest mentioned in the piece.
One of those men, named in FBI reports as Person of Interest 3, lived directly next door to the Capitol Police officer who was the subject of the Nov. 8 Blaze News article. The FBI’s Special Operations Group conducted surveillance on Person of Interest 3 in Falls Church, Va., for two days in January 2021, but surveillance was suddenly canceled, before any law enforcement officer ever questioned the man.
Massie said Bongino told him, “‘That’s a dead lead. … We investigated that lead and … there’s nothing there. There’s no there there.’ So that’s why they quit looking at it. … At that point I said, ‘But you guys weren’t — you never did suspect him. The FBI never did suspect him. … His build doesn’t match. There’s no way it could be him. Your guys were looking for somebody else.’”
Whistleblower concerns
A current FBI supervisory special agent on Nov. 10 filed a whistleblower protected disclosure with Massie and U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), alleging the termination of surveillance at the Falls Church condominium complex was improper and cut off a suggestion by a surveillance team member that Person of Interest 3 be questioned face-to-face at his doorstep.
Person of Interest 3 and Person of Interest 2, his alleged houseguest on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, had not been questioned by the FBI when surveillance was terminated. Interviews took place six days later, according to FBI reports included in the whistleblower disclosure. An FBI agent pretending to be a Metro Transit police officer interviewed Person of Interest 3 over the phone, a congressional source told Blaze News.
The whistleblower’s “concern was that the investigation that went to Falls Church, Virginia, that got them to the doorstep of the person that [Blaze News] identified through gait analysis as possibly somebody that might have been the person in the hood,” Massie said.
“There were suggestions made to the people in charge of the investigation about how to follow up on those leads,” Massie said. “And it was just dropped after two days of surveillance. And he [the whistleblower] provided supporting documents to that effect.”
Massie said Bongino made reference to the FBI conducting a meeting to address the whistleblower disclosure. “He didn’t say, ‘We’re trying to find the whistleblower,’” Massie said. “But my Spidey sense went off, and I almost said to him in that moment, ‘You better not be trying to find the whistleblower, because law protects that individual.’ But I didn’t say it.”
Massie said he thought about this when recalling the threat he said his staff received from the FBI official.
“I have to tell all the listeners this because this is the context in which I'm worried for the whistleblower,” Massie said. “If they're willing to retaliate against a congressional office, which has speech or debate immunity and a lot of other protections, they may be willing to retaliate against the whistleblower.”
The whistleblower’s attorney, Kurt Siuzdak, sent a letter to Massie and Loudermilk on Nov. 13, warning that if the FBI attempted to out the whistleblower, it would violate the supervisory agent’s protections under the law. Massie shared the letter on social media.
“Identifying the whistleblower serves only one purpose,” Siuzdak wrote, “which is to allow FBI management to retaliate.”
In a Nov. 13 post on X, Bongino accused Massie of throwing “BS bombs” and denied that the FBI sought to identify or retaliate against the Nov. 10 whistleblower. A Blaze News request to Bongino for further comment went unanswered.
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Judge Says US Attorney Lindsey Halligan Can’t Prosecute Comey Because Trump Appointed Her
An unelected, inferior-court activist judge tossed the grand jury indictment against disgraced former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday, arguing that federal prosecutor Lindsay Halligan was unlawfully appointed. Judge Cameron Currie, a Clinton appointee, ruled Monday that Halligan was unlawfully appointed and that the indictments against both Comey […]Lindsey Graham blocks House effort to scrap his $500,000+ Arctic Frost payday
Before Republican lawmakers passed their funding bill to reopen the government last week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) slipped in a provision that paved the way for senators — and only senators — targeted by the Biden FBI's Arctic Frost operation to squeeze the government for taxpayer cash.
Lawmakers in the House, some of whom were also victims of the previous administration's lawfare, unanimously rejected the provision, taking steps to repeal it earlier this week.
'What did I do wrong?'
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), among the senators eligible to sue for a payday of at least $500,000, stopped the repeal in its tracks on Thursday, prompting chatter about personal enrichment among some of his colleagues.
The provision
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) published damning documents last month revealing that in its years-long campaign to find "anything they could to hook on Trump, put Trump in prison," the Biden FBI not only subpoenaed records for over 400 Republican individuals and entities but secretly obtained the private phone records of numerous Republican lawmakers.
Thune introduced a provision into the continuing resolution that reopened the government to enable senators whose phone records were "acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed or disclosed" without his or her knowledge to file a civil lawsuit against the government inside the next five years for at least $500,000 plus legal fees for each instance of a violation.
Senators would be able to take legal action if at the time their records were seized, they were a target of a criminal investigation; a federal judge issued an order authorizing a delay of notice to the senator in question; the government complied with the judge's order; and the subpoena was faithfully executed.
The backlash
The provision caused bipartisan outrage in the House.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he was "very angry" about the provision, stressing that it had been slipped in at the last minute without his knowledge.
RELATED: A payout scheme for senators deepens the gap between DC and the rest of us
"We’re striking the provision as fast as we can, and we expect the Senate to move it," Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told CNN. "We believe there’s a fairly sizeable growing majority over there that believes that they should strike it."
Democrat Rep. Joe Morelle (N.Y.) said that this kind of "one-sided get-rich scheme at the expense of taxpayers is why Americans are so disgusted with this Congress."
Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who indicated that the provision was "probably the most self-centered, self-serving piece of language" he had ever seen, introduced a resolution to appeal the provision on Nov. 12.
"Nobody in the House supported this language," Scott said on Wednesday ahead of the vote on his resolution. "This language did not go through any committee in the Senate, did not go through any committee in the House, and could never be passed and signed into law if it was discussed openly."
"For the people who are saying it's $500,000, I want the American citizens to know this: It's not $500,000. It's $500,000 per account per occurrence," continued Scott. "We have one senator — one — who maintains that this provision is good and is currently saying that he is going to sue for tens of millions of dollars."
Scott appears to have been referring to Sen. Graham, who said in a recent Fox News interview that he would sue "the hell out of these people" for "tens of millions of dollars."
Scott added that it was right to open up the government but wrong to put "language in the bill that would make themselves individually wealthy."
The House passed the Georgia Republican's resolution in a unanimous 426-0 vote.
Graham's blockage
U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) requested unanimous consent on Thursday for the Senate to follow suit, claiming the provision was "unprecedented in American history."
Others across the aisle were reportedly warming to the idea of killing the legislation, including Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley — among those whose communications were targeted by the Biden FBI — who stated, "I had my phone tapped, so I'm all for accountability, don't get me wrong, but I just, I think taking taxpayer money is not the way to do it. The way to do it is tough oversight."
Desperate to protect the provision, Graham blocked the motion.
"What did I do wrong?" said Graham, who argued that the surveillance of his communications was unlawful and that he deserved a right to have his day in court. "What did I do to allow the government to seize my personal phone and my official phone when I was Senate Judiciary chairman?"
According to reports, federal investigators accessed Graham's phone records. No allegations to date indicate that investigators appropriated Graham's phones.
While Democrat senators attempted to paint the taxpayer-funded payback as unsanctioned by their leadership, Graham reportedly extracted from Thune an admission that the provision had been discussed with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
"So this wasn't Republicans doing this," said Graham. "This was people in the Senate believing what happened to the Senate need never happen again."
In hopes of alleviating concerns about self-enrichment, Thune proposed on Thursday changing the provision such that any damages awarded under the law would be forfeited to the U.S. Treasury. His corresponding resolution was blocked by Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.).
Graham underscored on Thursday, "I'm going to sue."
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Feds, local cops rescue over 100 kids in Florida, just in time for Thanksgiving
A multi-agency operation led to the recovery of over 100 children from Florida and several other states.
Operation Home for the Holidays was led by the U.S. Marshals Service and involved partnerships with the FBI’s Jacksonville Field Office, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, and other federal, state, and local entities.
'Many of these kids have been victimized in unspeakable ways. We will prosecute their abusers to the fullest extent of the law.'
Jason Carley, the FBI field office’s special agent in charge, explained that the mission aimed to “find missing and potentially trafficked children.”
“In these types of operations, partnerships are essential,” he added.
The law enforcement operation, which ran over two weeks, resulted in the recovery of 122 children, FBI Jacksonville reported on Monday. The children were connected to care and services.
“Protecting our children is at the core of the FBI’s mission. This operation represents the very best of what can be accomplished when state, local and federal partners come together with a shared commitment,” FBI Jacksonville stated.
Law enforcement agents rescued 57 children from Tampa, 14 from Orlando, 22 from Jacksonville, 29 from Fort Myers, and 13 from other states and internationally, according to the Florida Attorney General's Office.
"The children ranged in age from 23 months to 17 years old, and many had experienced various levels of abuse, neglect, exploitation, or exposure to other criminal activity," a statement from the AG's office read.
— (@)
Six individuals were reportedly arrested on felony charges, including child neglect, custodial interference, narcotics possession, sexual assault, terroristic threats, and endangerment.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called the operation one of the nation’s largest child-recovery efforts.
“Many of these kids have been victimized in unspeakable ways. We will prosecute their abusers to the fullest extent of the law,” Uthmeier stated.
“What allows our Middle Florida-based child recovery initiatives to stand out is the emphasis placed on what happens after,” said William Berger, the U.S. marshal for the Middle District of Florida. “We know these children will have needs once we find them. It only makes sense to build these operations alongside like-minded partners from across the child welfare space.”
“The United States Marshals Service is proud to stand with our partners across the state of Florida in pursuit of the safety and welfare of our children,” Berger continued. “This operation was built based upon the wants and needs of our communities. We are honored to play a leading role in answering those calls. Welcome Home and Happy Holidays!”
— (@)
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Tucker dropped the Crooks files — now Glenn Beck demands answers to 6 critical questions
On November 14, Tucker Carlson released an investigative video, exposing new details about Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old who nearly succeeded in assassinating President Donald Trump at his Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13, 2024.
In the 34-minute video, Carlson made three bombshell claims:
1. The FBI spent months falsely claiming Crooks had no online footprint while hiding a years-long digital trail of extremist posts across multiple platforms, including Discord, Snapchat, and YouTube, as well as an extensive search history in the days leading up to the assassination attempt.
2. Crooks began as a pro-Trump, far-right teen advocating dictatorship and racial violence, then dramatically flipped in 2020 to virulent anti-Trump rhetoric and explicit threats of assassination, decapitations, and terrorism-style bombings.
3. Crooks was groomed online by a neo-Nazi handler linked to a U.S.-designated terrorist group, yet the FBI — under both Christopher Wray and now Trump appointee Kash Patel — continues to cover up Crooks’ full history, motive, and evidence, including physically scrubbing the crime scene.
After these revelations, Glenn Beck says there are six critical questions the American public must demand answers to.
FBI slept on Crooks’ kill list
For starters, Glenn is highly skeptical about the FBI’s dismissal of Crooks’ disturbing online activity.
During his pro-Trump era, Crooks directed violent comments almost exclusively toward Democrat officials — overtly calling for their gruesome deaths. This was happening under Joe Biden’s FBI — “a period when the U.S. government … was monitoring social media more aggressively than any other point in U.S. history,” says Glenn.
“People were arrested for memes at this time, but Crooks? Nothing … not a warning, not a knock on the door, not one single action,” he says.
Crooks’ 2020 plot twist: MAGA → Trump assassin
Sometime in 2020, Crooks’ digital footprint, per Carlson’s documentary, reveals an abrupt ideological flip. His comments were just as violent, but suddenly, they were directed at Trump and his supporters. He began mocking Trump's handling of COVID-19, anti-lockdown protests, and conservative media figures, including Carlson himself, for downplaying the virus.
The FBI in its post-assassination attempt report, however, revealed only half of Crooks’ political leanings, omitting the anti-Trump part.
Neo-Nazi Discord daddy groomed him — crickets from FBI
Around the same time Crooks’ political leanings reversed, a shadowy online figure under the alias Willy Tepes, whom Carlson posits is a neo-Nazi Discord groomer affiliated with the U.S.-designated terrorist group Nordic Resistance Movement, began interacting with Crooks. According to the exposé, Tepes encouraged Crooks’ violent rhetoric, openly approving of his barbaric ideations aimed at government officials.
“So now you have our state department” and “our intelligence community that is monitoring people online, especially Nazis in the rest of the world and Nazis here, and yet there's nothing. Not a single red flag is triggered, not a single investigation, no monitoring, no intervention,” says Glenn, noting that this same FBI was monitoring “Catholic churches and priests.”
Further, in the days leading up to the assassination attempt, Crooks, Carlson alleged, searched Trump’s name hundreds of times, as well as Jack Ruby, bomb-making, car and sniper attacks, successful assassinations, and how to evade police gunfire.
“All of these things should ring every NSA alarm bell. Nothing — again,” says Glenn.
“They didn't stop him. They didn't prevent or try to prevent. They didn't warn anyone. Instead, as soon as he was shot, they rushed out a narrative — a very specific narrative — and then they shut down anything that conflicted with it.”
Trump’s FBI still running cover?
Perhaps the most head-scratching revelation in Carlson’s exposé is that Trump’s own FBI has continued to keep Crooks’ shocking history under wraps.
“I understand it when it's Biden's FBI, but now Trump's FBI? Now, why didn't Trump's FBI immediately come out [with this information]?” asks Glenn, noting that Dan Bongino is on record reiterating the narrative that Crooks had virtually no digital footprint.
He uses the metaphor of an iceberg for the FBI. “You see an iceberg, and you just see just the top of it. Two-thirds of that is under the water, so we're seeing the tops change,” he says.
“I'm questioning: Does anyone know how deep this goes? Because I don't think it matters who's running it.”
FBI: Fast cremation
The FBI also approved and coordinated the release of Crooks’ body for cremation just 10 days after the shooting.
“You don't do that in a presidential assassination attempt. You don't do that in a local homicide case unless you want something gone,” says Glenn.
The essential questions
1. Why did the FBI push the narrative that Crooks had a minimal digital footprint when quite the opposite is true?
2. Why did the FBI present only half of Crooks’ political history, hiding his era of Trump hatred? Who exactly was involved in the decision?
3. After the election and the appointment of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, why did the FBI continue to uphold the original narrative? Who made that decision?
4. Given that the government constantly monitors potentially dangerous online activity, why did Crooks’ violent comments, suspicious search history, and consorting with a known Swedish Nazi group go ignored?
5. Why did the FBI clean the scene prematurely by allowing Crooks to be cremated shortly after the crime?
6. Why is it that every time our FBI and government make a mistake, it seems to point in the direction of “ignorance, negligence, hiding inconvenient data, shaping a political narrative”?
“There's something very wrong. The official story is impossible to believe,” says Glenn, calling these questions not partisan but “self-preservation” inquiries.
“You can feel the republic slipping through your fingers. If we do not correct these things, we do not have a government of, by, and for the people.”
To hear more of Glenn’s commentary and analysis, watch the video above.
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Report: Biden Admin Hid Online Footprint Of Trump’s Would-Be Assassin
Without transparency, institutions like the FBI and the Department of Justice will continue to lose credibility with vast swathes of the American people.Damning social media footprint suggests man who shot Trump was another 'they/them' radical
Social media comments attributed to Thomas Matthew Crooks, the dead man who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump last year, suggest that he may have been yet another shooter captive to gender ideology and other genres of sexual perversion.
Crooks fired eight shots at Trump during a campaign rally on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. While he managed to strike only the ear of the man whom Democrats characterized as a "clear and present danger," the failed assassin killed heroic former fire chief Corey Comperatore and severely injured David Dutch and James Copenhaver, who were seated behind the president.
'The threat wasn’t hidden.'
The FBI has long suggested that Crooks' motives were unclear.
Days after former FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress that "a lot of the usual repositories of information have not yielded anything notable in terms of motive or ideology," then-FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate revealed that hundreds of comments had been found on one social media account believed to be associated with the dead shooter in the 2019 to 2020 timeframe.
"There were over 700 comments posted from this account. Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect anti-Semitic and anti-immigration themes, espouse political violence, and are extreme in nature," said Abbate.
Days after Tucker Carlson shared various screencaps of posts allegedly made by Crooks, the New York Post's Miranda Devine suggested on Monday that Abbate neglected to inform Congress that a significant portion of Crooks' online interactions from January to August 2020 signaled that "he did an ideological backflip and went from rabidly pro-Trump to rabidly anti-Trump and then went dark, never seeming to post again."
RELATED: Groomed for violence? The dark world of furries and transgenderism in America's classrooms
"The danger Crooks posed was visible for years in public online spaces," a source who apparently uncovered the shooter's hidden footprint told the New York Post. "His radicalization, violent rhetoric and obsession with political violence were all documented under his real name. The threat wasn’t hidden."
After reviewing Crooks' interactions across various platforms and pages including YouTube, Snapchat, Discord, GooglePlay, and Quora, the source concluded that the official narrative claiming that Crooks operated alone without a clear motive or ideology was bogus.
The shooter "was not simply some unknowable lone actor," said the source. "He left a digital trail of violent threats, extremist ideology and admiration for mass violence. He spoke openly of political assassination, posted under his real name, and was even flagged by other users who mentioned law enforcement in their replies. Despite this, his account remained active for more than five years — and was only removed the day after the shooting."
In 2019, Crooks allegedly made a number of pro-Trump, anti-Democrat remarks online, suggesting, for instance, that the president was "the literal definition of Patriotism" and stating, "MURDER THE DEMOCRATS."
In early 2020, Crooks apparently changed his tune and began deriding Trump and his supporters, defending draconian COVID-19 lockdowns, and lambasting Republicans over voter-fraud concerns, while in some instances being cheered on by an apparent member of a Norwegian neo-Nazi group.
Crooks allegedly suggested in a Feb. 26, 2020, post that Trump supporters were too "brainwashed to realize how dumb you are" and accused Trump of being a "racist" in a separate post the same day.
'This is a five alarm fire.'
Within months of his political about-face, Crooks was reportedly advocating for "terrorism style attacks" and political assassinations. At some point, Crooks also reportedly began associating with furries online.
According to the Post, Crooks reportedly began referring to himself using "they/them" pronouns on DeviantArt, an "online social network for artists and art enthusiasts" that teems with "furry" imagery depicting sexualized and anthropomorphized animals.
RELATED: Trans-identifying teen agrees to plead guilty to plotting Valentine's Day massacre at high school
The histories of two DeviantArt accounts linked to Crooks' primary email address indicate he possibly had a furry fetish, obsessing over cartoon characters with male anatomies and female heads.
Trump's failed assassin would hardly be the first radical in recent years who was immersed in trans and/or furry subcultures.
Charlie Kirk's suspected assassin was reportedly not only in a homosexual relationship with a transvestite, who on at least one occasion dressed up in a furry outfit, but was himself possibly active on a furry fetish website.
An engraving on a bullet casing linked to Kirk's assassination made reference to gay furries.
There was also the:
- trans-identifying man who shot up a Catholic church full of children in Minneapolis on Aug. 27, killing two children and injuring 30;
- male-identifying woman who planned to shoot up an elementary school and a high school in Maryland in April 2024 but was stopped in time by police — then later convicted;
- trans-identifying teen who stalked the halls of a school in Perry, Iowa, on Jan. 4, 2024, ultimately murdering a child and an adult and wounding several others; and the
- trans-identifying woman who stormed into a Presbyterian school in Nashville on March 27, 2023, murdering three children and three adults.
Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet said of the news of Crooks' possible trans-identification and furry fetish, "This is beyond correlation, this is a five alarm fire."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!Watergate was amateur hour compared to Arctic Frost
The FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation is confirmation that the left sees conservatives as enemies of the state and is fully intent on treating them as such.
Arctic Frost began in April 2022, with the approval of Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, along with Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and FBI Director Christopher Wray. In November 2022, newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith took over the probe. Smith declared he was focused on the allegations of mishandling classified documents, but Arctic Frost shows he was much more ambitious. He helped turn the investigation into an effort to convict Donald Trump and cripple the Republican Party.
The report indicts Smith for failing at lawfare, not for the lawfare itself.
It was revealed last month that by mid-2023, the FBI had tracked the phone calls of at least a dozen Republican senators. Worse still, with the imprimatur of Justices Beryl Howell and James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Smith issued 197 subpoenas targeting the communications and financial records of nine members of Congress and at least 430 Republican entities and individuals.
The organizations targeted were a “Who’s Who” of the American right, including Turning Point USA, the Republican Attorneys General Association, the Conservative Partnership Institute, and the Center for Renewing America.
Not content with active politicians, these subpoenas also went after advisers, consulting firms, and nonprofits. One subpoena targeted communications with media companies, including CBS, Fox News, and Newsmax. Normally, a telecommunications company should inform its clients and customers about subpoenas. But Howell and Boasberg also ordered nondisclosure orders on the dubious grounds that standard transparency might result in “the destruction of or tampering of evidence” — as if a U.S. senator could wipe his phone records or a 501(c)(3) could erase evidence of its bank accounts.
The scale and secrecy of Arctic Frost are staggering. It was a massive fishing expedition, hunting for any evidence of impropriety from surveilled conservatives that might be grounds for criminal charges. One can see the strategy, typical among zealous prosecutors: the threat of criminal charges might compel a lower- or mid-level figure to turn government witness rather than resist.
But Smith had an even grander plan. By collecting financial records, he was trying to establish financial ties between those subpoenaed and Trump. Had Smith secured a conviction against Trump, he could then have pivoted to prosecuting hundreds of individuals and entities under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This would have led to asset freezes, seizures, and further investigations.
Smith laid out a road map for crushing conservative organizations that was supposed to be implemented throughout a prospective Biden second term or a Harris presidency.
Fortunately, voters foiled Smith’s efforts.
A false equivalence
The meager coverage of Arctic Frost thus far has compared the scandal to the revelations of Watergate. But the comparison doesn’t hold. Arctic Frost involved significantly more surveillance and more direct targeting of political enemies than the Senate Watergate hearings of 1973 and 1974 managed to expose.
Setting aside campaign finance matters and political pranks, the most serious crimes the hearings exposed pertained to the Nixon administration’s involvement with break-ins and domestic wiretapping.
In the summer of 1971, the White House formed a unit to investigate leaks. Called the “Plumbers,” this unit broke into the offices of Dr. Lewis Fielding, who was the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Transferred over to the Committee to Re-elect the President at the end of the year, the unit then broke into the Democratic National Committee’s offices in the Watergate complex. The hearings exposed the burglars’ connection to CRP — and to the White House.
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The administration also authorized warrantless wiretaps. From May 1969 until February 1971, in response to the disclosures of the secret bombing of Cambodia, the FBI ran a 21-month wiretap program to catch the leakers. This investigation eventually covered 13 government officials and four journalists. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover submitted the wiretapping authorizations, and Attorney General John Mitchell signed them.
As a matter of optics, it was the surveillance of the members of the media that provoked the scandal. Since they were critical of the Nixon administration, it looked like the administration was targeting its political enemies. As a criminal matter, the issues were less about the actions themselves, as it was at least arguable that they were legal on national security grounds. Instead, it was more about the cover-up. When these wiretaps came up in the hearings, Mitchell and others deceived investigators, opening themselves up to charges of obstruction of justice.
A troubling parallel
One aspect revealed during the Watergate hearings could be compared to Arctic Frost. The hearings exposed extensive domestic spying that preceded the Nixon administration. The tip of the iceberg was the proposed Huston Plan of June 1970, which became one of the most sensational pieces of evidence against the Nixon administration. Named for the White House assistant who drafted it, the Huston Plan proposed formalizing intelligence coordination and authorizing warrantless surveillance and break-ins.
Nixon implemented the plan but rescinded it only five days later on the advice of Hoover and Mitchell.
Who were those Americans who might have had their civil liberties affected? It was the radical left, then in the process of stoking urban riots, inciting violence, and blowing up government buildings. The plan was an attempt to formalize ongoing practices; it was not a novel proposal. After Nixon resigned, the Senate concluded in 1976 that “the Huston plan, as we now know, must be viewed as but one episode in a continuous effort by the intelligence agencies to secure the sanction of higher authority for expanded surveillance at home and abroad.”
For years, ignoring the statutes that prohibited domestic spying, the CIA surveilled over three dozen radicals. The military and the Secret Service kept dossiers on many more. The FBI operated COINTELPRO, its surveillance of and plan to infiltrate the radical left, without Mitchell’s knowledge. And as the Senate discovered, “even though the President revoked his approval of the Huston plan, the intelligence agencies paid no heed to the revocation.” This was all excessive, to say the least.
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Watergate helped expose a far larger and longer surveillance operation against left-wing domestic terrorists. Comparing this to Arctic Frost suggests that the shoe is now on the other foot: the state regards right-wing groups as equivalent to domestic terrorists. Once, the national security state was abused to attack the left. Now, it’s abused to attack the right. This is hardly an encouraging comparison.
Lawfare for thee, not for me
There’s a third reason that the comparison to Watergate doesn’t hold. In the 1970s, abuses generated a reaction. The Huston Plan, for instance, was squashed by the head of the Department of Justice. Controversial surveillance plans wound down eventually. Wrongdoing was exposed, and the public was horrified, worsening the people's growing mistrust of government. Lawmakers passed serious reforms to rein in intelligence agencies and defend Americans' civil liberties.
Survey today’s landscape, and it doesn’t look like there will be any similar reaction. If you’re a conservative staffer, activist, contract worker, affiliate, donor, politician, or lawmaker, you’ve learned about the unabashed weaponization of the federal justice system against you without the presence of any crime. What’s even more disturbing is that this investigation went on for 32 months, longer than Mitchell’s wiretaps.
During that time, no senior official squashed the investigation, and no whistleblowers leapt to defend conservatives. There wasn’t a “Deep Throat” leaking wrongdoing, as there once was in Deputy Director of the FBI Mark Felt. There weren’t any scrupulous career bureaucrats or political appointees in the Justice Department or elsewhere ready to threaten mass resignations over a legally spurious program, as happened to George W. Bush in the spring of 2004.
No telecommunication company contested the subpoenas, as happened in early 2016 when Apple disputed that it had to help the government unlock the iPhone of one of the terrorists involved in the December 2015 San Bernardino shootings. Neither bureaucrats nor corporations are coming to the rescue of the civil liberties of conservatives.
Public opinion won’t help, either. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) has called for “Watergate-style hearings.” But they wouldn’t work. Watergate was a public-relations disaster for the presidency because it spoke to an American public that held its government to a moral standard of impartial activity. Television unified this audience while also stoking righteous fury over the government’s failure to meet that standard.
The hearings were effective only because they reached a public sensitive to infringements of civil liberties and hostile to the weaponization of the state against domestic targets. But 2025 is not 1975. Even if one could unite the American public to watch the same media event, televised hearings on Arctic Frost wouldn’t bring about a major shift in public opinion. In fact, many voters would likely approve of Arctic Frost’s operations.
For one part of the country, lawfare happens and it’s a good thing. Jack Smith’s lawfare does not embarrass or shame the left. If anything, he is criticized for insufficiently weaponizing the law.
To date, the largest exposé of his methods to reach the legacy media, published in the Washington Post, criticizes Smith for prosecuting Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents in Florida (where the alleged crime occurred) rather than in the District of Columbia. It’s an impressive investigative report, assembling aides and experts to showcase Smith’s mistake. Left unstated is the answer to the naïve question: If the offense was committed in Florida, why was it a mistake not to pursue the case in D.C.? Because that was the only district where Smith could guarantee a favorable judge and jury.
To the conservative mind, most Americans still believe that protecting civil liberties matters more than attacking one’s enemies.
The report indicts Smith for failing at lawfare, not for the lawfare itself. In this environment, where lawfare is already taken for granted as the optimal strategy to defeat the enemy, exposing the details of Arctic Frost is like publicizing the Schlieffen Plan's failure in 1915 and expecting the Germans to be ashamed enough to withdraw. They already know it didn’t work.
Exposing the plan won’t change anything. The election of Jay “Two Bullets” Jones as Virginia’s attorney general is an indication not only of the presence of a fanatic at the head of Virginia’s law enforcement but also of what a good proportion of the Democratic electorate expects from the state’s most vital prosecutor. His task is to bring pain to his enemies.
The 1970s saw the abuses of the national security state generate a forceful public reaction. That turned out to be a rare moment. Instead of a pendulum swing, we have seen a ratchet effect. The national security state has acquired more weapons over the intervening decades, and the resistance to it has grown weaker. This has hit conservatives hardest, because many still imagine that our constitutional culture remains largely intact.
To the conservative mind, most Americans still believe that protecting civil liberties matters more than attacking one’s enemies. From that point of view, American politicians operate under electoral and self-imposed restraints that will impel them to take their opponents' due process rights seriously or risk being shamed and losing elections. But these restraints are now ineffectual and hardly worth mentioning.
Unlike in the 1970s, there will be no cultural resolution to the problem of lawfare. The problem will only be solved by political means: using power to punish wrongdoers, deter future abuses, and deconstruct the weaponized national security state.
When you’re presumed to be an enemy of the state, the only important question is who will fight back on your behalf.
Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at The American Mind.
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