Mysteries emerge in attempt on Trump’s life; no rationale for bullet hole in hat

House task force investigators revealed new information Tuesday about the shooter who tried to assassinate presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and unearthed new mysteries about the July 13 attack.

Here are five things we learned from the task force’s final report.

Mysterious bullet hole in a hat

The FBI reconstructed the shooting and established bullet trajectories for six of the 10 rounds fired: eight from shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, one from a local law enforcement officer who fired at Crooks and one from the Secret Service sniper who killed Crooks.

All six bullets originated from the north of the stage where Mr. Trump spoke, in the direction of the AGR International complex from which Crooks shot.

“The FBI found that, aside from a bullet hole in a hat, all bullet holes and impacts the FBI identified originated from the north, toward the AGR complex,” the task force report said.

The report says nothing else about the bullet hole in a hat, raising various questions. Whose hat was it? Did the FBI determine that the hole came from a bullet fired from a different direction or a fragment spun off from one of Crooks’ bullets?

The report says that the FBI “was unable to link every identified hole or impact with a specific bullet or bullet fragment trajectory because of several limitations,” including that bullet fragments from encounters with intervening objects can produce additional trajectories.

The FBI expert who conducted the bullet trajectory analysis identified 35 places of impact from the six trajectories he could reconstruct.

“There were no impacts or fragmentation at the podium where former President Trump spoke, the bleacher area where Mr. Comperatore was standing at the time of the shooting, or the AGR roof,” the report said. Rally attendee Corey Comperatore was killed in the shooting. “One of the bullets Crooks fired was not recovered.”

The Washington Times reached out to the FBI, which said it “has no comment.”

Questions about damaged buttstock

The buttstock of Crooks’ rifle was damaged in the shooting, but the FBI has not said how.

Rep. Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican and one of the task force members who has been conducting a parallel investigation, told The Times he believes the damage to the rifle’s buttstock came from a bullet that a Butler County SWAT officer fired at Crooks.

The report offers an alternative explanation for how the buttstock was hit. It cited a Pennsylvania State Police report concluding that the plastic section dislodged and missing from the rifle’s buttstock “was later determined to be a result of the USSS countersniper’s projectile impact after traveling through Crooks’ head.”

The FBI said the buttstock was likely damaged by a projectile impact. A test of the impacted area came back positive for lead, but the FBI has not determined the origin of the lead.

Crooks’ explosive devices

The FBI previously said the receivers on the two self-made improvised explosive devices that it recovered from Crooks’ vehicle were set to the off position but otherwise capable of exploding.

The task force report does not shed light on why Crooks brought the IEDs to the rally but left them in the off position. It describes the potential impact of the IEDs, as tested by the FBI.

“Per the FBI, anyone within ten feet of the IEDs (had they been successfully detonated) would have immediately been killed,” the report said.

The FBI also found an IED in Crooks’ room at his home that it previously said was missing initiation system components and was nonfunctional.

The task force report reveals that Crooks “placed the necessary materials nearby to quickly complete the IED” and preprogrammed its receiver to pair to the handheld remote transmitter he connected to the two fully assembled IEDs.

The combination of components Crooks used to build the IEDs was unusual and “overengineered,” said the FBI’s expert, who concluded that Crooks’ “ambitions exceeded his capabilities.”

Father confirms Crooks’ ‘declining mental health’

Although the task force did not speak to Crooks’ family directly, the panel obtained more information about him from other investigations.

“Crooks’ father described his son’s mental health as declining,” the report said, noting that the description came from the Pennsylvania State Police.

The father told the state police that his son never used illegal drugs and was not taking any prescription medications.

The FBI has not identified a motive for Crooks’ shooting nor drawn any public conclusions about his mental state. While not ruling out mental health issues, the FBI said on July 29 that it had no evidence of mental health treatment, institutionalization, medications or anything else confirming disorders.

The FBI and other law enforcement officials reportedly told Mr. Trump during his witness interview that Crooks may have been struggling for years with an undiagnosed disorder, according to ABC News.

Reforming the Secret Service

Lawmakers have floated several ideas for overhauling the Secret Service since the assassination attempt. That includes removing the agency from the Department of Homeland Security or shifting its responsibility for financial crime investigations to another department so the Secret Service can focus on protective operations.

The task force said Congress should consider both options and recommended another: “Reduce the number of protectees.”

The Secret Service has roughly three dozen permanent protectees. The most prominent are the president and vice president, and currently, the president-elect and vice president-elect.

The number of Secret Service protectees has expanded over the years, creating resource demands that are particularly taxing “during the longer and more intensive modern presidential campaign seasons,” the report said.

“Additionally, because the USSS protects foreign dignitaries, there is a significant increase in work during the U.N. General Assembly, which occurs in September at the height of campaign season,” it said. “As a result, Congress, DHS, and the USSS should jointly consider the protective role the USSS plays for foreign leaders and consider whether such duties can be transferred or abrogated in order to focus on the USSS’s primary duty: to protect the president and other critical U.S. leaders.”