Crooks' newly-discovered digital footprint (11-20-2025--Hour1)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to vpetecleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. So the White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said, Americans deserve answers on Thomas Crooks, the Dickenzian named would be assassin of Donald Trump from last year, Butler Pennsylvania, the whack job that took a shot at Donald Trump while he was giving a speech and but for a millimeter gust of wind or something or a turn of the head, miss Donald Trump and struck Corey comparatory volunteer firefighter, killed him, seriously wounded two others. So Caroline Levitt was asked about well, the question came from Miranda Divine from the New York Post during the White House Press briefing, and Divine just did this big story where she uncovered a lot of the social media posts that Thomas Crooks had been making in the years prior to essentially twenty twenty, when he went sort of social media silent, so Levitt said, quote, those questions are definitely deserving of answers, and I understand why the public wants those answers, and I believe the president does too. Okay. So that's what happened yesterday. It was during the press briefing. And here is the original reporting from Miranda Divine, which was then also followed up by reporting by Tucker Carlson, although that got pushed back from Cash Bettel because of the sloppy way that it was written up. I think, so Okay. Miranda Divine's piece New York Post, she says, we are all owed a better explanation from the FBI and the Secret Service about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Sixteen months ago at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, twenty year old Thomas Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper, but not before we killed one of the rally attendees, Corey Comparatory, who was fifty years old, also seriously wounded David Dutch fifty eight, and James Copenhager seventy five, who were sitting in the bleachers behind Trump. There is something very wrong with the official story that invites conspiracy theories, right, And this is the problem. When you don't disclose all of the information, when you appear to be hiding things in obvious ways, it invites conspiracy theories. Even if you are completely you know, transparent in everything, it still invites conspiracy theories, to be sure. But the problem is when there are things that are obviously suspect or being covered up, or being lied about or something, then it makes those conspiracy theories gain traction. So the President, you'll recall, had demanded answers on this month's ago. Then FBI Director Christopher Ray told Congress after the July thirteenth, twenty twenty four, attack, that the bureau had found nothing in Crooks's online history that pointed to a motive or political ideology. A week later, Raised Deputy Paul Abody told Congress that comments posted on one of Crooks's social media accounts appear to reflect anti Semitic and anti immigration themes, to espouse political violence, and are described as extreme in nature. Okay, so the implication there is that oh, anti Semitic, anti immigration, he must be a right winger, which never made sense. It never made sense, But that's all we really got. But now, thanks to an enterprising source who uncovered Crooks's hidden digital footprint, we can now see that a body misled Congress by omission because he left out an entire sou action of Crooks's online interactions from January through August of twenty twenty, when he did an ideological backflip and went from rabidly pro Trump to rabidly anti Trump, and then he went dark, never seeming to post again, which I'm not so sure about that either. There were also questions that I have about how he funded his arsenal right, where he got the funds for this stuff, the contact in Ukraine and all of this because his parents were not particularly well off, so where was he getting his money? Among He had seventeen accounts, which I say that like it's a lot, but I probably have, like I probably have twice as many, but not that I post on. But he had seventeen different accounts across YouTube, Snapchat, venmo Zell, group, me, discord, Oh there's a red flag, Play, Google Play, quizlt chest dot com and qua ok so we had among others. So obviously the one that stands out to me, or I guess probably two of them is well okay three, YouTube, Snapchat and discord. Those would be the places I'd be surprised if he doesn't have a Reddit profile. He apparently posted under two different names, but kind of variations on the same name. And I would be surprised if he went completely dark in twenty twenty. If he was just simply you know, crazy, then you would have you would you would still want to have the outlet for expressing your lunacy. So that's kind of suspicious to me that he went dark in twenty twenty, never to post another thing again after posting all of these comments in up until twenty twenty. But apparently even Miranda Divine and Tucker Carlson their investigations all say the same thing as the FBI's, which is that his digital footprint went cold in twenty twenty. So the source that worked with Miranda Divine at The New York Post says that the danger Crooks posed was visible for years in public online spaces. His radicalization, violent rhetoric, and obsession with political violence were all documented under his real name. The threat was not hidden. The official narrative claimed that he acted alone and without a clear motive or ideology or digital footprint. Yet the source per Source found reams of information that shows Crooks was quote not simply some unknowable loan actor. He left a digital trail of violent threats, extremist ideology, and admiration for mass violence. He spoke openly of political assassination. He posted under his real name, and was even flagged by other users who mentioned law enforcement in their replies. You may have seen stuff like this occur. I see it pretty regularly on Twitter, where people will tag like DHS on like with all of the Customs and Border Patrol operations going on in Charlotte this week, people are like, you need to go do these bad things, you know, and people will tag DHS or FBI or something. People were doing that to his comments, did the and law enforcement had no idea. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina? Just a quick drive up the mountain and cabins of Asheville is your connection, whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 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In this document dump, he spoke on these platforms openly of political assassination. He posted under his real name. He was flagged by other users. Despite this, his account remained active for more than five years and was only removed the day after the shooting. None of this online activity was referenced in the final congressional report that was released in December twenty twenty four, which makes it all the more troubling. Why wasn't any of this in the congressional report? You know? Did they not know? Did they know? And they are trying to protect some other investigation. That seems kind of odd unless they're going to unless they're trying to track down some other network, And that might be possible here based on one piece of information that I'll get to in a bit. So Crooks's trajectory from pro Trump to anti Trump is evident. He referred to Trump as the literal definition of patriotism in a comment on July twentieth, twenty nineteen. He also issued several targeted threats against the Democratic congressional representatives that make up the squad right. Those are the uber leftist Democrats. But then something happened in early twenty twenty. His online behavior flips one hundred and eighty degrees and he became very critical of Trump. This was in January of twenty two because one might take a guess here that, okay, maybe the guy went nuts during the COVID lockdowns or something, but no, this happened right after or right before COVID, and I know, like January twenty third, that's when he made this post where he was talking about He was commenting on a video posted about Jonathan Turley where Turley was talking about Trump's first impeachment, and Crooks wrote, keep in mind, the only reason we may know about any of this is because of Trump's stupidity. And then he started calling Trump's supporters a cult. What happened? Don't know what changed this guy? What flipped him. By April twenty twenty, Crooks was constantly criticizing Trump's pandemic response, saying he was too slow and everything he's doing now should have been done. So Trump's behavior was too slow, which that was the narrative adopted by the Democrats and the media. But I repeat myself, right, That's what they were saying, is that Trump wasn't doing enough, he wasn't acting fast enough, because remember, Trump was like leaving it up to individual states to determine how they would respond and whether they would declare states of emergency and what would close and all of that. Trump was deferring to the states. And at the time, and I still believe this now, that was the correct thing to do. But Democrats wanted complete lockdowns. Democrats wanted the national government to step in and bigfoot the states. Through the summer of twenty twenty, his online rhetoric became increasingly radical and violent. Now, maybe that's part of being locked in a house and you're only interactions are coming online. It seems pretty clear that he was radicalized online. And then there's this nugget. Just like the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk, Thomas Crooks appears to have been interested in furries and exploring gender identity. There is a platform called deviant Art. Would not recommend you google that while at the workplace or on a work platform, and on this platform, deviant Art, he had a profile and he describes himself in the in the profile with the pronouns they then deviant Art is one of the biggest online hubs for furry art and the furry community. All Right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature your subscription. Then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. So people are always asking me, Pete, what's a furry? So here's a good explanation provided by Miranda Divine in her New York Post article on Thomas Crooks and his digital profile, his footprint that has now been uncovered by amateur sleuths, and it contradicts what the FBI has been telling us, notably that Thomas Crooks had a profile on the platform deviant Art. He described himself with the pronouns they them, and devian Art is one of the biggest online hubs for furry art and the furry community. What is a furry It is someone who has an interest in anthropomrph five. Sorry I should have just Rea, I should have just said it really quickly instead of trying to sound it out. ANTHROPOMORPHI animal characters in other words, animals. But they're people kind of like you when you dress up your dog for Halloween. No, no, I'm kidding, it's it's not quite that deranged. No, I kid, I kid. Look, if I had a pet that ever suffered getting dressed up like, I would totally do it. But every time I try to put like a hat or something on any animal I've ever owned, it runs away, and I'm not going to force the issue. So a furry is someone who has an interest in anthropomorphized animal characters, often as a sexual fetish. Right, So these are people that really really, really really enjoy getting dressed up in sort of mascot kind of costumes and then engaging in carnal relations. I don't know how you would dry clean the uh the outfits afterwards, but it has crossed my mind, like ew, Now, not every furry is into the sexual fetish side of the furriness. Okay, so it's not. They're like, there's a like to tap into my inner Kamala Harris. Like there's a then diagram here where you've you know, there's some overlap to be sure, but it's not a perfect circle. Okay, you got two circles there and they overlap, so you may just really be you know, digging on the furry art, Like oh, look this lion. It's like a lion but looks like a person with a lion's head, you know, and not like a like a sagittarius looking thing or a minotaur. Was that? No, what's the Yeah, a minotaur is another one with a half man and then the half beast or whatever. Like the bottom of it's like a deer or something. I think that's a centaur. That's it, thank you. Minotaur is like the bull. But that's a good like somebody were to dress up like that. Anyway, I've spent too much time talking about furries. Two accounts linked to Crooks's primary email were found on devian art. Because you always got to have a burner account, I guess, or maybe he just forgot his user passwords so he created a new profile or something. I don't know. Maybe he used it to click like on his own comments, because that's what a deranged person would do. He used the user names Epic Microwave and the Epic Microwave, And I'm sure there's a whole psychology behind why you would come up with that name. You know what it sounds like. You never get one of the the Wi Fi Internet boxes from the cable company or something, and they you know, they have an auto default password and in the old days, it used to be like a jumble of numbers and stuff and letters and you can never remember it. And then they started doing like like phrases like this adjective noun phrases. That's what this sounds like. Like this was the name of his Wi Fi router, you know, Epic microwave or something. Anyway, the account suggests that he had an obsession. I'm sorry for this, but an obsession with scantily clad cartoon characters sporting muscle bound male bodies and female heads. Like, at some point, doesn't this stuff, like this imagery, doesn't it conjure up like some of the some of the art from you know, long time ago, with people sacrificing babies on altars to Moloch, Like, doesn't some of this stuff kind of conjure any connection to that stuff? So is it possible that he started to become radicalized in the furry community. We know that Tyler Robinson, the murderer of Charlie Kirk, he was all into this stuff too. Spent hours and hours and hours on these games. And one of the games was like where you like a virtual reality game where you put the goggles on and then you're immersed and you're like, you're a furry except you're like a cartoon video generated animal of some kind, but you're a person still, And then you would have virtual relations with these other virtual cartoon characters, which I don't even know how that works, but nor do I. No, do not send me links. I do not care to know. Also, both of these guys were on dish scored, which is a messaging app. It's used a lot in the gamer community and has been for a long long time. It was like this sort of secondary app that gamers would use and still do. They use as a separate chat box basically while they're playing a game with other people. And then like, if you're doing like a first person shooter game, you can be texting like coordinates or whatever. You can be talking in those chat boxes. You can be texting, you can be talking whatever. It's a messaging app. Is that where his radicalization occurred? Did he too find love in the furry community and did the furries convince him that he had to take out Trump like Robinson had to take out Kirk. But wait, there's more. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences, Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process us the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven in Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. 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From last summer he was very anti left pro Trump, then flipped like on a dime and became very anti Trump and then goes dark in late January of twenty twenty. So what happened, Well, we found out that now apparently he had multiple profiles on this furry platform he called himself. They them, But there's more. One of the people that Crooks interacted with online was a member of the Norwegian neo Nazi group called the Nordic Resistance Movement, which has since been designated a terrorist organist by the State Department. He was interacting with someone that went by the name Willie Tepys Tepees or TEPS. Teps encouraged violence and encouraged Crooks's extremism, and he would use the phrase sorry, political power comes from the barrel of a gun. That is from Mao, communist Chinese. Right, everyone's favorite kami over there Mao. Crooks would then repeat that line several times in his own posts. Shortly after his interactions with Teps, Crooks disappeared offline. Did his brush with the Norwegian and his own violent rhetoric win him a visit from the FBI or the Secret Service. If not, why not? If so, why was that not disclosed? The FBI refused to comment when asked on Sunday whether Crooks was ever investigated, visited, or in some way brought to the attention of the agency before he tried to assassinate Trump, or whether there was an FBI file on Crooks before Butler Pennsylvania. And that's kind of odd. Sometimes I will tell you something in journalism, sometimes a no comment is just as good as a comment. The FBI also refused to comment on why it has not been forthcoming on congressional oversight requests. Former FBI Director Christopher Ray told Congress in July of twenty twenty four, eleven days after the shooting, that the bureau quote did not have any prior information about the shooter and that he was not in our holdings before the shooting. He said the FBI ran a search for Crooks through its databases and he was not found. Susan Crabtree, an investigative reporter at Real Clear Politics who has broken multiple stories about the failures at Butler, says her key Secret Service from the twenty twenty time period told her that quote Crooks was not a person of record at the Secret Service in twenty twenty and was not known to Secret Service until Butler Pennsylvania. So something here doesn't add up. How can he be making all these comments? How could other people see the comments? Tag law enforcement? And he never was on anyone's radar. He was talking to this guy in Norway, that is this neo Nazi guy. And by the way, the Secret Service after action report on the assassination attempt is still classified. Requests for information from the FBI by Senator Ron Johnson have been rebuffed, including under the current director, Cash Bettel. Johnson had to issue a subpoena back in July on the first anniversary of the Butler attack, and has complained that he's being stonewalled by the FBI and the Secret Service in his efforts to request the security camera footage, along with forensic reports and other documents related to the case. Trump and those close to him are skeptical about the official story, and they questioned the impoverished parents of Crooks, who had to ask for money from neighbors to pay for their son's funeral, how they could afford to hire a high priced white shoe law firm called Quinn Loeg out of Pittsburgh. Where did they get that money from. It's hard to believe the FBI and or the Secret Service missed Crooks. It does seem that way, doesn't it. It seems hard to believe. On the text line driven by Liberty Buick GMC seven oh four number, says Pete. More importantly, who covered up Crooks's online profile? Don't know. Sean wants to know if you dress your dog like a person? Is he a fleshy? That's that's a good question. We'll do a three part series next week. Maybe. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.