Feds break into suspected Trump shooter’s phone

The FBI says it has cracked into the phone belonging to the suspected shooter in the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.

“FBI technical specialists successfully gained access to Thomas Matthew Crooks’ phone, and they continue to analyze his electronic devices,” the bureau said in a statement posted Monday afternoon.

The bureau did not specify the brand of the phone, how it was locked or how they broke into it. Officials had told reporters Sunday that Crooks’ phone had been shipped to the bureau’s lab in Quantico, Virginia.

As tech news site 404 Media noted Monday, U.S. law enforcement agencies have access to technology that can break into password-protected iPhones. Those capabilities became more widespread after Apple refused to help unlock the phone of the gunman in the 2015 San Bernardino, California, mass shooting.

Crooks, a 20-year-old resident of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was shot and killed by Secret Service agents on a rooftop hundreds of feet away from Trump as the former president spoke Saturday at a campaign rally in nearby Butler County.

The FBI said it had not identified a motive in the shooting, in which a bullet clipped Trump’s ear, one person was killed and two others were seriously wounded. The investigation is “still in the early stages,” the bureau said Monday, but it is still being considered as potential “domestic terrorism.”

The bureau said it completed a search of Crooks’ residence and vehicle, and has “conducted “nearly 100 interviews of law enforcement personnel, event attendees, and other witnesses.”

Other potential evidence includes “hundreds of digital media tips which include photos and videos taken at the scene, and we continue to review incoming tips,” the FBI said.