BREAKING: Thomas Matthew Crooks may have had accomplice, says private investigator

Would-be assassin of President Donald Trump Thomas Matthew Crooks may have had an accomplice in the assassination attempts, the New York Post has reported. This comes nearly nine months since the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.  

According to the outlet, sources familiar with the matter said that the FBI has run interference in trying to find out why Crooks carried out the shooting. The shooter left no manifesto. However, the outlet reported that a private investigator believes a "criminal network" was working with Crooks at the time of the assassination attempt. 

Private investigator Doug Hagmann told the outlet, “We don’t think he acted alone. This took a lot of coordination. In my view, Crooks was handled by more than one individual and he was used for this [assassination attempt]. And I wouldn’t preclude the possibility that there were people at the rally itself helping him." 

Hagmann as well as his team of six other investigators have been working on the case, and have interviewed dozens of people. They have also looked into the location of a device that was geolocated to be with Crooks at the time of the shooting. According to their work, that device is still pining at Bethal Park High School.  

Crooks fired a total of eight shots toward the direction of Trump, striking him in the ear and hitting others in the crowd behind him. Corey Comperatore, a retired fireman in the area, was killed by the shots. Two others were critically injured as a result, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, who were both hospitalized. 

In the aftermath of the shooting, security failures and a lack of coordination between the US Secret Service and local law enforcement was to blame, which led to the resignation of USSS Director Kimberly Cheatle. 

Crooks was killed by a counter sniper amid the chaos at 6:25pm. 

Hagmann told the outlet that he has gotten an escort to the Butler County line, where he was then told to leave on two separate occasions as he and his team of six others have been investigating the assassination attempt.  

Crooks had fantastic grades all throughout high school and got a 1530 out of a 1600 SAT, and some have wondered what drove the young 20-year-old attempt the assassination of Trump. Teacher Xavier Harmon, who said Crooks was his "little buddy," told reporters he had no idea what drove the would-be assassin to take the shots at Trump. 

"I just didn’t believe it when I heard it. Tom was the quirky, funny little guy who also loved to excel in class. When he was finished he’d always go back and help his classmates. He was very intelligent," Harmon said. 

"I don’t think he set out to kill the president," Harmon added. “My guess is, he messed with the wrong individuals about what they were going to do and it was different from what he thought it was going to be. Anyone planning to do this would leave some sort of breadcrumbs. But there’s nothing — no paperwork, no itinerary, no even [him] going to websites to [research]."

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), who has been investigating the circumstances of Crooks' actions and death, has said that a drug may have drove Crooks to the crime. “Something happened to make him go crazy and that’s why I think it might have been pharmaceuticals. He performed an attempted assassination and he was committed all the way through – to death. He was not acting erratic but he was a wild lunatic at the same time, incredibly calculating and incredibly smart," Higgins said. 

However, like the teachers, other people who knew him could not imagine what motivated the assassination attempt. “It’s presented like an open and shut case like ‘Oh, he went crazy’ but it doesn’t really add up. It’s like JFK. Do we think we’ve become so modern that wouldn’t happen again?" Mark Sigaroos, a friend of Crooks' from high school, said.