FBI Files Reveal New Thomas Crooks Phone, Drone Evidence

FBI Records Reveal Thomas Crooks’ Phone Messages, Drone Details
Judge Orders CIA to Provide Answers on January 6 Records
Federal Court Unseals Secret FBI Warrant Records Targeting Mike Lindell
Judicial Watch Sues CIA for Fauci Covid-19 Communications

FBI Records Reveal Thomas Crooks’ Phone Messages, Drone Details

We are learning more about Thomas Crooks, the would-be assassin of President Trump, but the FBI is sitting on much more.

We received 249 pages of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman who attempted to assassinate then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at a July 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The records include photos taken of the Pittsburgh area by Crooks using a drone, cell phone evidence that shows that Crooks received fundraising appeals for Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), a package delivery from Hong Kong, and an unusual chat thread between Crooks and an unidentified person.

We filed our July 2025 FOIA lawsuit after the FBI failed to respond to a July 2024 request for records concerning Crooks and the assassination attempt (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-02216)). The Justice Department has indicated that the total volume of records in the Crooks investigative file numbers approximately 75,000 pages. At their current release rate of approximately 500 pages per month, it will take over 12 years to provide us with all the records.

An FBI electronic communication dated July 19, 2024, concerns a cell phone conversation in the Crooks investigation described as a “chat thread” between Crooks and a recipient whose name is redacted. The conversation occurred between May 21, 2023, and January 3, 2024.

The outgoing messages consist largely of one- and two-word messages or character strings, including:

Hello
Hello red
Hello red
Hdudhdbdbbd
7888ejdj
Yolo
Ddodjjf
890
Hdjd
Djdj
red
Yup red
Hello
Jhhhuuh
Hhdj
Jjjjjjjjjjjj
Hello red
Red red …

The incoming messages are completely redacted from this text chain.

A report titled “Samsung Messaging Review” is dated July 18, 2024, and details the FBI’s identification of other communications on a Crooks cell phone as “pertinent” to its investigation. FBI agents noted:

Conversation with unknown contact [redacted] 8 February 2023 to 10 February 2023;
Conversations with [redacted] 9 January 2023 to 16 January 2023;
Conversations with [redacted] 12 December 2022 to 26 December 2022.

The FBI also noted text messages consisting of campaign solicitations from then-U.S. Senate candidate Raphael Warnock and DHL shipment notifications from Hong Kong.

Much of the new production consists of FBI laboratory analysis of a drone examined as part of the Crooks investigation.

An FBI laboratory report dated July 19, 2024, details their technical exploitation of Thomas Crooks’ drone. They indicate they successfully extracted 40 images from the drone and eight flight logs. The images were taken between February 6, 2024, and February 27, 2024, in the Pittsburgh area. Seven of the eight flights occurred in the Allegheny-West, PA, area and an eighth flight on July 13, 2024, in the Butler, PA, area. The data pulled from the device indicates that it had been powered on 15 times.

These latest records reveal more pieces of the puzzle surrounding Thomas Crooks. The FBI should stop the slow drip of heavily redacted records and immediately provide the full investigative record – especially since the death last week of James Copenhaver, who was severely injured from being shot during the assassination attempt on President Trump.

In September 2026, this lawsuit uncovered heavily redacted FBI records revealing that Crooks purchased “a chest rig and ceramic plates,” exhibited increasingly unusual behavior, including talking to himself, pacing at night, staying awake for extended periods and exhibiting impulsivity issues.

In June 2026, this lawsuit forced the release of heavily redacted records from the FBI that indicated that a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officer at the July 2024 presidential rally for Donald Trump in Butler, PA, recovered a “gray remote device” with an antenna from Crooks’ pocket after he was killed.

In May 2026, we received, in response to a Pennsylvania court order, an audio recording of a 911 call placed by the father of Crooks.

In April 2026, our federal FOIA lawsuit forced the release of the first FBI records about the Butler assassination attempt, revealing that law enforcement personnel broadcast radio warnings about an “unknown male acting suspiciously” prior to the shooting.

Also in April 2026, the lawsuit forced the release of records from the FBI that showed that Crooks was reportedly involved in an altercation with a group of people and making “hateful comments” directed at President Trump at the Butler, PA, rally.

In August 2024, we uncovered documents under a Pennsylvania open record request from the district attorney’s office in Butler County, PA, detailing the extensive preparation of local police for the rally at which former President Trump was shot. The preparation included sniper teams, counter assault teams and a quick response force.

In August 2024, in response to a Pennsylvania open records request, we obtained bodycam footage of the July 13 assassination events from the Butler Township Police Department.

Judge Orders CIA to Provide Answers on January 6 Records

For more than two years the CIA has been stonewalling our request for information on its role at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Now a federal judge has stepped in and ordered the agency, beginning this week, to provide answers on its search for records.

The order was issued immediately after a September 24 joint status hearing held at our request in our August 2024 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency (No. 1:24-cv-02172)).

We asked the court to order the CIA to provide more information on the status of its FOIA response after zero progress for over two years. The Court ordered the CIA to provide details on potential productions of records and its search process:

Defendant has represented to the Court that it anticipates completing its search for and review of responsive records within eight months. It is ORDERED that Defendant shall file a notice by October 2, 2026, including a date certain when Defendant will begin rolling interim productions of responsive records. The Parties are further ORDERED to file another joint status report by December 1, 2026. In that report, Defendant is directed to describe its search process, the volume of materials located, the progress of its responsiveness review, and any interim productions made. The report should also apprise the Court of the results of any conferral regarding the scope of requests. It is further ORDERED that Defendant shall provide Plaintiff with any draft status reports at least one business day in advance of the filing deadline.

We sued for records related to any shots fired inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and records of requests for CIA support, including bomb technicians and bomb-detecting dogs placed on standby or used in response to the massive protests in and around Washington, DC.

In March 2024, Judicial Watch received 88 pages of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) records from the Department of Justice in a FOIA lawsuit that show the CIA deployed personnel to Washington, DC on January 6, 2021.

The records include a series of text messages under the heading “January 7 Intel Chain” in which two separate references to participation by the CIA are made. One states that “two CIA bomb techs” are assisting with “a pipe bomb scene on New Jersey and D ST SE.” Another record references “several CIA dog teams on standby.”

In a Joint Status Report filed with the court on September 2, 2026, we argues:

More than two years after this lawsuit was filed, the agency states that it is still not finished with its search. Notably the agency does not claim that this is because the request was overbroad or otherwise unmanageable. It simply has not finished the search after more than two years.

***

Accordingly, pursuant to the Court’s June 15, 2026 Minute Order, Plaintiff proposes that the agency be ordered to provide a detailed description of the status of its efforts, including but not limited to descriptions of the searches conducted and remaining to be conducted, and a date certain when the searches will be complete. The agency also should be ordered to disclose the number of records located and reviewed, the rate at which the records are being reviewed, and a date certain when the review will be complete. Finally, the agency should be ordered to provide a date certain when interim productions will begin. Alternatively, Plaintiff requests an in-person status conference to further address these matters.

We’re pleased a federal court agrees with us that the CIA should give the American people more information about its handling of a simple FOIA request about what it was doing at the US Capitol on January 6.

We have pursued details of January 6 on several fronts.

In July 2026, we forced the release of over 1,000 hours of Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department body-worn camera footage from the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol event.

In April 2026, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to obtain records related to possible improper targeting of January 6, 2021, Capitol protesters, their supporters, and related nonprofits.

In July 2025, we sued the U.S. Department of Justice for records on accelerated January 6 prosecutions after Donald Trump was elected president in November 2024.

In June 2025, we concluded a $4.975 million settlement in the wrongful death lawsuit against the U.S. Government filed on behalf of the family of Ashli Babbitt, the U.S. Air Force veteran who was shot and killed inside the U.S. Capitol by then-Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd on January 6, 2021. Ashli Babbitt was the only January 6 homicide victim.

In October 2023, we received the declaration of James W. Joyce, senior counsel in the Office of the General Counsel for the Capitol Police, in which he describes emails among senior officials of the United States Capitol Police (USCP) in January 2021 that show warnings of possible January 6 protests that could lead to serious disruptions at the U.S. Capitol.

Federal Court Unseals Secret FBI Warrant Records Targeting Mike Lindell

A federal court has unsealed key search warrant records behind the Biden FBI’s September 2022 seizure of Mike Lindell’s cell phone (In the Matter of the Search of a Person Located in the District of Minnesota, No. 22-mj-742 (TNL)).

The records, unsealed at the request of Judicial Watch and Lindell, show that the FBI cited information from Dominion Voting Systems—including its then-pending $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Lindell and others—as part of its justification for obtaining the warrant. The lawsuit was settled as to Lindell earlier this year.

A federal court unsealed key search warrant records behind the Biden FBI’s September 2022 seizure of Mike Lindell’s cell phone (In the Matter of the Search of a Person Located in the District of Minnesota (No. 22-mj-742 (TNL))).

The records, unsealed at the request of Judicial Watch and Mike Lindell, show that the Biden FBI used private litigant Dominion Voting Systems’ then-pending $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Mike Lindell and others (a lawsuit that had been settled as to Lindell earlier this year) as well as other information from Dominion as part of its justification for seeking the warrant.

Dominion Voting Systems was suing Mike Lindel, and the Biden FBI chose to rely on this private lawsuit as a reason for armed federal agents to seize his phone at a fast-food drive-through. All of this, and Lindell was never charged with anything. Thanks to Judicial Watch, Americans can now see how the Biden FBI weaponized federal law enforcement against a prominent critic of the 2020 election.

On September 7, 2022, the FBI obtained a warrant from U.S. Magistrate Judge Tony N. Leung to search “the person of Michael Lindell,” seize his phone, and use his fingerprints or face to unlock it. The FBI already had nearly two years of Lindell’s phone and Apple account records.

The FBI obtained warrants to track Lindell through his phone’s location a week before the warrant for the phone seizure was issued.

According to Lindell, as he was returning from a hunting trip in Iowa on September 13, 2022, four plainclothes FBI agents in three unmarked vehicles surrounded him at a Hardee’s drive-through lane in Mankato, Minnesota. The unmarked vehicles had followed Lindell all the way from Iowa. They took his phone and questioned him about Dominion voting machines.

The unredacted portion of the 80-page affidavit shows how central Dominion was to the government’s case. The FBI told the court:

Lindell has a personal financial motive to find evidence undermining the integrity of Dominion machines, as he is facing substantial litigation from Dominion based on Lindell’s disparaging statements about the machines.

The unsealed affidavit also:

• listed interviews with, and records from, Dominion witnesses among its principal sources;
• relied on “Dominion officials” for the claim that copies of Mesa County, Colorado’s election system contained “proprietary Dominion data and software;”
• devoted a section to Lindell’s public statements “Linking His Ongoing Litigation Against Dominion to the Mesa County Incident;” and
• authorized agents to seize everything on Lindell’s phone relating to “any Dominion computerized voting system.”

The affidavit further alleged that the phone held evidence of identity theft, damage to a protected computer, and conspiracy. The allegations were tied to the May 2021 copying of Mesa County’s Dominion election system, and the affidavit relied mainly on Lindell’s phone contacts with, and payments to, a redacted individual. Despite the affidavit’s claim that there was probable cause to believe a crime was committed, the FBI never charged Lindell or anyone else.

The newly unsealed records also show that, as recently as March 2026, the Justice Department sought to keep evidence of the FBI’s coordination with Dominion secret by requesting another one-year extension of the seal, arguing that disclosure would “prejudice the government’s ongoing investigation.” On July 30, 2026, lawyers for Judicial Watch and Lindell told the Justice Department that they would move to intervene and unseal. The Justice Department responded that it “would move on its own to unseal those materials,” and it did so on August 17 after redacting certain sections of the documents. The affidavit and application were placed on the public docket on August 28.

Judicial Watch and Lindell then identified nine additional sealed docket entries and filed a consent motion to unseal them. The motion noted that “America has a long history of distrust of secret proceedings.” U.S. Magistrate Judge Jon T. Huseby granted the motion on September 14, 2026, and the remaining records, including the sealing petitions, were subsequently made public.

“It is a travesty that the prior administration relied on information provided by a private litigant in existing litigation to obtain a warrant to seize the telephone of an opposing litigant,” said Mike Lindell.

The unsealing is part of our investigation into whether federal law enforcement agencies abused their powers to target allies of a political opponent.

We are also suing the Justice Department for records about its investigations of Lindell (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 25-cv-03850)). We have also moved to unseal warrant materials targeting Rudy Giuliani, Victoria Toensing, and Michael Caputo.

Judicial Watch Sues CIA for Fauci Covid-19 Communications

Why was Anthony Fauci communicating with the CIA about the origins of Covid-19?

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for records concerning Dr. Anthony Fauci’s communications with the Intelligence Community about the origins of Covid-19, gain-of-function research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the selection of scientific experts consulted during the government’s Covid-19 origins investigations (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Central Intelligence Agency (Case 1:26-cv-03336)).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the CIA failed to respond to a May 2026 FOIA request for:

• Communications involving Dr. Anthony Fauci and others (including his executive assistants, senior advisors, or counsel) concerning the origins of Covid-19, gain-of-function research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, EcoHealth Alliance, coronavirus research funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the selection of subject-matter experts.
• Records concerning the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Biological Sciences Experts Group (BSEG), including its membership, work, conflicts of interest disclosures and recusal records, and correspondence, with particular attention to Dr. Ralph S. Baric of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
• Communications between CIA employees and employees of the ODNI Director’s Initiatives Group (DIG) from March 1, 2025, through April 30, 2026, concerning the origins of Covid-19, the CIA’s production of records to the DIG, any refusal or limitation on that production, or CIA Senior Operations Officer James E. Erdman III.

The request followed congressional scrutiny of Fauci’s contacts with the CIA and comes after explosive testimony by Erdman before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on May 13, 2026. Erdman testified as a whistleblower concerning the government’s investigation of Covid-19’s origins.

In the hearing, Erdman testified that:

On April 8, 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard created a task force charged with restoring transparency and accountability to the Intelligence Community. The group was called DIG, or Director’s Initiatives Group …

Erdman asserted:

Dr. Anthony Fauci influenced the IC’s analytic process and Covid origin’s findings by leveraging his position to ensure the IC consulted with a conflicted list of curated Subject Matter Experts (SME), public health officials, and scientists. This included the authors of the paper “The Proximal Origin of SARS-COV-2” and other public health experts and scientists who have been in his orbit for 20+ years, many of whom have and did receive funding from NIAID, as well as scientists working under IC contract.

This contradicts Dr. Fauci’s 2024 testimony to Congress, when he answered “not to my knowledge” when asked if he had briefed any intel agency concerning viral research.

The BSEG [Biological Sciences Experts Group] scientists influenced national laboratory WMD [weapons of mass destruction] research, policy decisions, finished analysis, and other intelligence matters, creating misaligned incentives and conflicts of interest, as well as counter-intelligence issues.

In a chronology of the origin of Covid-19, Erdman testified:

Dr. Fauci injected himself into the process during two key timeframes. First in February 2020 as the pandemic started and in June 2021 as the IC was initiating a 90-day review of all source intelligence. His involvement with the IC in February 2020, when compared to his public-facing actions and that which has been revealed to the public from FOIA results, clearly indicates his actions were intentional. It gave the appearance that he was seeking to ensure the IC did not get too far ahead of the narrative he was generating with overseas partners like Jeremy Farrar and Edward Holmes; while making sophomoric attempts to publicly claim he did not have a hand in the findings from Kristian Andersen’s paper “The Proximal Origins of SARS-CoV-2.” Instead, he pressured the IC to meet with the paper’s authors and a curated list of supporters who also happened to receive NIAID funding and in some cases were part of the IC’s advisory body of scientists.

***

[On] 4 June 2021, there was an interagency meeting which included Dr. Anthony Fauci. He provided specific guidance regarding the IC’s outreach efforts. The NIC officer in charge of the 90-day study proceeded to ensure Dr. Fauci’s recommendations were pursued.

***

Sometime between 12 and 17 August 2021, the CIA changed its assessment from lab incident to a non-consensus determination. There is no indication based on the documents in DIG holdings to indicate why the assessment changed.

The whistleblower testimony raises serious questions about Fauci’s contacts with the Intelligence Community and the process used to determine which experts would advise intelligence officials about Covid-19’s origins. The American people deserve to see the underlying CIA records. If Fauci influenced the selection of experts or the Intelligence Community’s analysis, the public has a right to know exactly what happened and who was involved.

Our FOIA lawsuits and investigations have uncovered much of what the public knows about many Covid-19 controversies:

In August 2026, we sued the U.S. Department of Justice for the contents of Fauci’s government-issued cell phones. The phones were provided to former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Fauci and later reportedly recovered by the FBI (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:26-cv-02812)).

In May 2026, we filed a post-hearing brief in a FOIA lawsuit on behalf of Open the Books, urging a federal court to compel the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to release unredacted records showing royalty-related payments to government scientists, including Fauci.

In April 2026, we sued the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for records and communications of its employees with other government officials regarding coronaviruses, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and related Covid-19 research.

In March 2026, we sued the U.S. Department of Defense (War Department) for records on funding proposals submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. The Biological Technologies Office was launched in 2014.

In June 2025, we sued the Defense Department for all records regarding U.S. military personnel possibly contracting Covid-19 in October 2019 during the World Military Games in Wuhan, China. The lawsuit cited a December 2022 report issued by the Pentagon titled “Report to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives: 2019 World Military Games” which states that seven “service members who attended the games exhibited Covid-19-like signs and/or symptoms” during the time surrounding their attendance at the games.

In May 2025, we received records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that revealed its plans to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for 17 million health care employees and that only one of 4,682 claims for injuries and deaths due to Covid-19 “countermeasures” at the time was compensated.

Records uncovered in 2024 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through a FOIA request showed an April 2020 email exchange with several officials in the bureau’s Newark Field Office referring to a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China as including “gain-of-function research” which “would leave no signature of purposeful human manipulation.”

Records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that a Pfizer study surveyed 23 people in 2021 to gauge reactions to its Covid vaccine booster before asking the FDA to approve it.

Records from the Health and Human Services included the initial grant application and annual reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from EcoHealth Alliance, describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create mutant viruses “to better predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”

Health and Human Services records included emails of then-Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins showing a British physicians’ group recommended the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19.

Records from Health and Human Services regarding data Moderna submitted to the Food and Drug Administration on its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine indicated a “statistically significant” number of rats were born with skeletal deformations after their mothers were injected with the vaccine. The documents also revealed Moderna elected not to conduct a number of standard pharmacological studies on the laboratory test animals.

Food and Drug Administration records detailed pressure for Covid-19 vaccine booster approval and use.

National Institutes of Health records revealed an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.

Health and Human Services records revealed that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the NIAID.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases records showed that it gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the National Institutes of Health’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.

Health and Human Services records included an “urgent for Dr. Fauci” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing representatives from China on important international councils as high level commitment from China.”

Health and Human Services records included a grant application for research involving the coronavirus that appeared to describe “gain-of-function” research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses, attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate the full-length bat SARS-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.

Health and Human Services records showed the State Department and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases knew immediately in January 2020 that China was withholding Covid-19 data, which was hindering risk assessment and response by public health officials.

University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) records showed the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Dr. James W. Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the Covid issue by Congress.

Health and Human Services records regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the Covid-19 vaccines showed a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.

Records from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) revealed safety lapses and violations at U.S. biosafety laboratories that conduct research on dangerous agents and toxins.

Health and Human Services records included emails between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis Collins and Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about hydroxychloroquine and Covid-19.

Health and Human Services records showed that National Institutes of Health officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” Covid-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.

Fauci emails included his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response to the 2019 novel coronavirus.

Until next week,

The post FBI Files Reveal New Thomas Crooks Phone, Drone Evidence appeared first on Judicial Watch.

Source: https://www.judicialwatch.org/fbi-files-reveal-new-thomas-crooks-phone-drone-evidence/