The parents of Trump shooter Thomas Crooks have hired a team of powerhouse attorneys as the FBI continues to investigate just how much they knew ahead of their son’s assassination attempt on the former president, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
The development comes as one family member shared with DailyMail.com that the FBI, ‘still very much has questions’ regarding how much the killer’s parents knew – while revealing that his father Matthew Crooks, 53, is a gun enthusiast who has sold firearms to relatives in the past.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, the family member who asked not to be named said, ‘The FBI still very much has questions about how much they knew and how he [Thomas] slipped through the net.’
The idea that someone may have assisted Thomas Crooks was given new credence on Thursday by Florida US Rep. Mike Waltz. In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com he questioned whether the 20-year-old acted alone.
The parents’ choice of law firm suggests that they are bracing for possible criminal charges as well as potential civil action from the families of their son’s other victims.
Quinn Logue, the Pittsburgh-based law firm that Matthew Crooks and his wife Mary, 53, have retained, describe themselves as trial attorneys who specialize in both criminal defense and civil suits including wrongful death and personal injury.
The parents of Trump shooter Thomas Crooks have hired a team of powerhouse attorneys as the FBI continues to investigate just how much they knew ahead of their son’s assassination attempt. His father Matthew Crooks, 53, was spotted outside his home on Wednesday
The Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, home where the parents of Trump shooter Thomas Crooks live
Thomas Crooks, 20, attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a Butler, Pennsylvania rally on July 13
Founding attorneys John Quinn and Matthew Logue have both been recognized among the ‘Top 50 Lawyers in Pittsburgh’ and the firm consistently appears in publications such as Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers in America.
Exclusive pictures obtained by DailyMail.com on Tuesday and Wednesday show Matthew Crooks for the first time since it emerged that his son had been quietly cremated ten days after the shooting.
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Crooks, 53, clutched a mystery manila kraft clasp envelope both times.
Dressed in a flatcap, blue t-shirt and khakis on Wednesday, he walked swiftly from his truck into the family’s bungalow home in a quiet neighborhood in Bethel Park.
He did not respond to DailyMail.com’s attempts to elicit any comment on his son’s possible motives or the events leading up to the shooting.
Crooks was also seen outside the home on Tuesday, wearing a dark t-shirt with blue jeans and the same flatcap as Wednesday.
It has been six weeks since his 20-year-old son opened fire on Trump’s rally on July 13 at Butler Farm Show Grounds at 6.11pm and came within a quarter of an inch of ending the former president’s life as he made his bid for re-election.
Crooks was ‘neutralized’ by a Secret Service sniper 26 seconds after he first shot.
By then he had already fired eight bullets. He hit Trump, 78, in a grazing shot to his right ear, struck retired fire chief Corey Comperatore, 50, in the head, killing him, and grievously wounded audience members James Copenhaver, 74, and David Dutch, 57, who suffered ‘life altering’ injuries as a result of the attack.
Troubling details have emerged since the attempted assassination which is also being investigated by a House task force consisting of 12 lawmakers.
Among them is Republican congressman Waltz, who says he is not convinced the shooter acted alone.
Speaking to DailyMail.com on Thursday, Waltz cast doubt on federal law enforcement’s assertion that he was the sole perpetrator, pointing to their failure to answer other questions like why he had foreign encrypted messaging accounts.
Crooks was also able to create multiple explosives with remote detonators, another thing that raised Waltz’s eyebrows.
‘You can’t tell us his motive, but you could tell us he operated alone?’ the Florida Republican questioned. ‘You can’t get into these encrypted overseas accounts, but you can tell us he acted alone?’
‘So, I don’t buy that yet.’
According to CNN, Crooks’s parents had attempted to reach their son when they could not find him earlier that day, but he did not respond.
They then called law enforcement to tell them that their son was missing. It is not known whether they were aware that he was armed.
Matthew Crooks, the father of Trump shooter Thomas Crooks, is seen outside his Bethel Park home in exclusive DailyMail.com photographs
Quinn Logue, which is based in an office building in downtown Pittsburgh describe themselves as trial attorneys who specialize in both criminal defense and civil suits including wrongful death and personal injury
Newly released images show Thomas Crooks walking calmly at the Trump rally before he tried to kill the former president
Shooter Thomas Crooks in the hours before he attempted to assassinate Trump
Trump’s right ear was grazed by a bullet shot by Crooks, who killed one man and seriously injured two more
Secret Service agents rushed to the aid of former President Trump as he rose from the ground and raised a fist in defiance after one bullet shot by Crooks hit him
In the weeks since the attack investigators have focused on Crooks’s online activity in the months and days leading up to it in a bid to gain some sense of his state of mind.
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Intriguingly it has emerged that he searched online for information on Michigan mass-shooter Ethan Crumbley and his parents.
Jennifer and James Crumbley were both found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in a landmark case which saw them deemed culpable for failing to act on clear signs that their 15-year-old son was plotting the 2021 High School shooting in which he killed four classmates.
An image of Crumbley’s arrest along with information on his parents’ prosecution was found on Crooks’s primary cellphone.
According to the relative who spoke with DailyMail.com, guns were very much a part of the Crooks household.
They revealed that the family ‘didn’t really take part in family holidays or gatherings’ but that Crooks’s father is a gun enthusiast who had sold guns to other family members in the past.
Crooks left home on the day of the rally armed with an AR-15 style rifle that was bought legally by his father in 2013 and transferred to him in 2023.
He was an enthusiastic member of Clairton Sportsmen’s Club which he visited the day before the incident to practice on the rifle range which offers high powered rifle benches with targets up to 187 yards – roughly the distance Crooks was from Trump when he shot him.
Thomas Crooks searched online for information on Michigan mass-shooter, Ethan Crumbley and his parents (pictured above), before his assassination attempt
The FBI is continuing to probe just how much Matthew Crooks, the father of Trump shooter Thomas Crooks, knew ahead of the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania six weeks ago. Daily mail.com also pictured Crooks outside his home on Tuesday
According to a relative who spoke with DailyMail.com, guns were very much a part of the Crooks household
Cops scoured the area outside the home of Thomas Crooks in Pennsylvania the day after he shot former President Donald Trump
Former President Trump was clipped in the ear by one bullet fired by Thomas Crooks at the Butler rally
Immediately after the attack the FBI removed 14 firearms from the small family home as well as explosives, a second cellphone, a laptop and a hard drive.
In addition to the arsenal recovered from his home investigators recovered rudimentary explosive devices from Crooks’s car, a bullet-proof vest, additional magazines – bought both online and the previous day from Allegheny Arms & Gun Works – and a drone.
So far, no clear motive for the shooting has emerged with FBI profilers speculating that Crooks may simply have wanted to commit a mass shooting and found a convenient target for his dark fantasy in the timing and geographical proximity of Trump’s rally which was held just 40 miles from where he lived with his parents.
In April, Crooks searched websites for information on major depressive disorder and depressive crisis treatment.
Speaking shortly after the shooting one family friend told DailyMail.com that they had been aware of a decline in Crooks’s mental health in recent years and assumed he was either bi-polar or schizophrenic.
Dressed in jeans, a dark T-shirt and a cap, Matthew Crooks wore a cross at his neck as he walked swiftly from his truck into the family’s bungalow home in Bethel Park
Matthew Crooks, 53, did not respond to DailyMail.com questions about whether he knew anything about his son’s plans to assassinate the former president
Republican firefighter Corey Comperatore was killed as he tried to protect his wife Helen frm, the flying bullets
But they did not know if he had received any official diagnosis or treatment for behavior that they considered to be, ‘off.’
The friend said, ‘In the past couple of years he started suffering what we all suspected was mental health issues.
‘We never knew for sure if he had been diagnosed or if he was being medicated but he started growing his hair long, he withdrew.
‘There was nothing super alarming but looking back of course you question what was missed? His father was a psychologist.
‘I’m not blaming the parents, but did he suppress something? Was there some denial there? Was there anything hidden?’
When approached for comment by DailyMail.com a spokesman for Quinn Logue declined to comment, as did the FBI.