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Cole Allen clues pile up as Thomas Crooks’ secrets died with him — experts cite evidence gaps in Trump attacks

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In a matter of days, authorities have revealed a trove of information about Cole Allen after he allegedly tried to assassinate President Donald Trump, while the public has learned little about Thomas Crooks nearly two years after his assassination attempt.

The contrast raises new questions about transparency and what remains unknown about Crooks’ shooting of Trump, and experts say the explanation may be simpler than it seems.

In the latest case, investigators quickly developed a clearer picture of the suspect’s apparent grievances, communications and alleged planning. But in the Crooks case, key questions about motive and mindset have lingered long after the shooting, fueling speculation about what investigators know and why the public still knows so little.

Experts who study assassination attempts and targeted violence say the difference often comes down to evidence.

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Sometimes, they say, one offender simply leaves behind far more information than another.

Allen, a 31-year-old California computer scientist, is accused of opening fire at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday, April 25, after allegedly rushing a Secret Service checkpoint armed with multiple weapons. He now faces federal charges, with more expected.

By contrast, Crooks, who carried out the 2024 assassination attempt against Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was shot and killed at the scene, limiting the scope of the investigation and what information became public.

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“There really just isn’t always an answer. There isn’t always a clear motive,” Nicole Parker, former FBI special agent, Fox News contributor and author of “The Two FBIs,” told Fox News Digital.

Parker said in some cases, investigators are left with very little to work from, especially when a suspect has few connections or leaves behind a limited digital footprint.

“I don’t believe the FBI is hiding anything,” Parker said. “There’s probably just not as much evidence in that case to point investigators in a clear direction.”

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At the same time, Parker said more information is emerging quickly in the Allen case in part due to a broader push for transparency.

“The Trump administration is focused on getting facts out quickly to avoid conspiracy theories,” she said, noting officials are releasing information “to the extent possible without compromising the investigation.”

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“Every case is different,” the FBI said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “When a prosecution is pending, the FBI works closely with prosecutors on what can be released without interfering with the trial process. The FBI and the Department of Justice, along with our local partners, have had multiple press briefings since Saturday’s shooting. Because this is an ongoing investigation as well as ongoing legal process, the FBI cannot comment further at this time.”

Forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, an expert on criminal behavior, said the difference between the two cases often starts with the suspect.

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Dietz, president of Park Dietz & Associates and founder of the Threat Assessment Group, has worked on some of the nation’s most high-profile criminal cases, including those involving Reagan shooter John Hinckley Jr., serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and the Unabomber.

In Allen’s case, Dietz said, the suspect appears to have left investigators with far more to analyze.

“Allen left a bigger trail,” Dietz said. “He had contact with more people. He wrote a lot online. And he, of course, sent this missive at the last moment explaining his actions.”

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Dietz said that kind of trail, communications, writings and personal contacts can accelerate how quickly investigators and the public understand a suspect’s mindset.

“Some of this is determined by the offender,” Dietz said. “How public are they going to be about their motives and nature of their grievances?”

Dietz said early indicators point to a familiar pattern seen in these types of cases.

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“It’s very clear that this is primarily a grievance,” he said. “The fact that he wrote to his family, justifying his actions and explaining why he was taking them indicates that he’s aware that this is going to become public information, that it will be a historical document.”

“So there is a fame-seeking portion of this,” Dietz added. “But grievance is the primary motivation.”

Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist and former consultant to the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, said the Crooks case differs in one key way — it never moved toward prosecution.

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“Crooks obviously was killed by the Secret Service,” Meloy said. “So there is not going to be an active prosecution of an individual.”

That distinction, Meloy said, affects how much information is gathered and ultimately made public.

“With the Allen case, this will be headed for an active prosecution,” Meloy said. “And therefore the data gathering will typically be much more comprehensive and much more meticulous in order to gather evidence for the prosecution of the case.”

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“That’s probably the major reason you see differences in how much information and when it is presented to the press and the public,” Meloy added.

“That typically does not occur when there has either been the death of the perpetrator,” he said, noting those cases are generally limited to after-action analysis rather than full trial preparation.

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Meloy said another key factor is how much information a suspect leaves behind.

“People need to appreciate that individuals who carry out these acts will vary greatly in how much data they’re going to leave behind,” he said.

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Meloy added that some suspects leave extensive online activity and communications that can be analyzed, while others leave very little.

WATCH: DOJ releases new video of alleged WHCA dinner shooter in halls, storming checkpoint

“In other cases, there may be a very, very low amount of presented material online,” Meloy said. “Some of them will be very, very careful and engage in what we call operational security where they don’t want information to be left behind,” he said, noting that can leave investigators with little to reconstruct after the fact.

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Even when warning signs exist, they are often missed.

“In 60 to 90 percent of the time, they will engage in what we call leakage,” Meloy said, referring to when individuals communicate their intent before an attack. “Sadly, that communication oftentimes doesn’t emerge until after the attack has occurred.”

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Trump-backed candidates score major boost from deep-pocketed AI Super PAC in upcoming primaries

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A pro-AI super PAC with over $125 million raised in 2025 is investing heavily in upcoming Senate and House primaries across multiple states.
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U.S. Launches Fresh Strikes on Iran Hitting Missile Sites, Minelaying Vessels

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Fresh strikes on southern Iran were launched by U.S. military forces early Tuesday morning targeting Iranian missile sites and vessels attempting to lay anti-shipping mines in the contested Strait of Hormuz.

The post U.S. Launches Fresh Strikes on Iran Hitting Missile Sites, Minelaying Vessels appeared first on Breitbart.

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Trump flexes MAGA muscle in Texas Senate runoff clash between Cornyn and Paxton

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AUSTIN, TX – President Donald Trump has a new target this week as he takes aim at Republican critics — longtime GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.

Trump is targeting Cornyn as “VERY disloyal” as he backs Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a major Trump ally and MAGA firebrand, in Tuesday’s combustible and expensive runoff election for the GOP Senate nomination in the right-leaning state. The ballot box showdown serves as the latest tests of Trump’s immense grip over the Republican Party and the strength of his endorsements in GOP nomination races.

The winner of the runoff will face off against rising Democratic Party star state Rep. James Talarico in the general election in a race that is among a handful that may decide if the Republicans hold their slim 53-47 majority in the Senate. Talarico, who topped progressive star Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a vocal Trump critic, in the March primary, is trying to become the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win a Senate election in Texas.

The Senate contest is the most high-profile showdown on a ballot that also includes Democratic and Republican runoffs for Texas Attorney General, as well as key primary battles for four U.S. House seats, including a Democratic Party runoff in the 35th Congressional District where one of the two candidates in a social media post proposed converting an ICE detention center into a prison for American supporters of Israel.

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Trump’s targeting of Cornyn comes three weeks after the purging five state senators in Indiana’s primary who had opposed his push for congressional redistricting, a week and a half after helping to oust Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — who five and a half years ago voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial – and one week after defeating vocal GOP critic Rep. Tom Massie of Kentucky.

The Texas runoff is also being held one week after Trump endorsed Paxton, after sitting on the sidelines in the race for months.

“Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,” Trump wrote in a social media post last Tuesday.

The two heated rivals topped a crowded field of contenders in the early March primary, with Cornyn edging Paxton. But since neither cleared the 50% threshold, the nomination race headed into overtime.

Trump, in backing Paxton, said that “John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough.”

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Pointing to the senator’s past criticism of him, Trump added, “John was very late in backing me in what turned out to be a Historic Run for the Republican Nomination, and then, the Presidency.”

Cornyn, in a Fox News Digital interview on the eve of the runoff, emphasized his support for the president and his agenda.

“President Trump has called me a friend and a good man, and we’ve worked with him closely for both terms of office,” the senator said.

Paxton, who grabbed significant national attention the past dozen years by filing lawsuits against the Obama and Biden administrations, disagreed.

“John Cornyn fought Trump on the border. And you can go back over about a decade and see that he was not for the border wall,” Paxton charged in an interview on Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show.”

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Paxton also argued that the senator “fought the president’s reelection. He fought him in 2024, said his time had passed, and he fought him in 2016. So this is not a pro-Trump guy. I don’t know if we could be more different on the Republican issues than John Cornyn and me. So there is a vast difference between the two of us.”

Cornyn pushed back.

“I don’t know how much more with him I could be than 99.3% of the time,” the senator told Fox News Digital.

“I want him to be successful. I want America to be successful, and I want Republicans to be successful. But you know, in the end, as I said, Texans are the only ones going to be able to make a choice, and I think Texans can be pretty independent,” Cornyn added.

Paxton has faced a slew of scandals and legal problems that have battered him over the past decade. In 2023, the Texas House of Representatives voted to impeach Paxton, but he was eventually acquitted of all charges by the state senate.

And Paxton is dealing with a very messy divorce, with his wife citing “biblical grounds” based on “recent discoveries” in filing last year to end their marriage.

Cornyn, who is supported by Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has repeatedly argued that if Paxton is the GOP’s nominee, the party will be forced to spend millions of dollars to keep the seat from flipping and that Republicans down-ballot will suffer.

“He’s gotten more and more emboldened as he’s gotten away with all the scandal and mischief that now is very well known, but were he to be the nominee and be exposed to general election voters, especially independents, I think it’s going to be a very rocky time,” the senator predicted.

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And pointing to Talarico, who hauled in an eye-popping $27 million in fundraising during the first three months of this year, Cornyn said “there will be an incredible tsunami of Democratic funds coming in against Paxton, were he the nominee. Conversely…if I am the nominee…we’ll be able to shoulder the burden pretty much on our own. I won my last general election by 10 points. I think I can do similarly against somebody who’s as far left and radical as James Talarico.”

While Paxton has shifted his ads to target Talarico in the wake of the Trump endorsement, Cornyn and allied groups continue to blast Paxton.

“I don’t think anybody could honestly argue that we haven’t fought hard to make the case here,” Cornyn said of his campaign.

And he emphatically said he’s “worked too long and too hard to help build the Republican Party in Texas, and in the United States Senate, and to keep Texas the envy of the nation when it comes to opportunities and pursuing the American dream, to let that go, to squander it, and let it go without a fight. So I’m still optimistic on the outcome, but obviously it depends on who shows up.”

The other statewide runoff in Texas is for attorney general, in the race to succeed Paxton.

In the expensive GOP showdown, four-term Rep. Chip Roy is battling state Sen. Mayes Middleton, the president of an independent oil and gas company.

Middleton, who edged Roy in the March primary, has dished out roughly $17 million of his own money to back his campaign. But Roy, a former Texas assistant attorney general and former chief of staff to conservative Sen. Ted Cruz, received a late surge in fundraising from major backers.

“We’ve gotten the financial support necessary to compete with my self-funder opponent, who’s got his inheritance money that he can just spend,” Roy highlighted in a Fox News Digital interview on the eve of the runoff.

Roy has argued that Middleton’s lack of courtroom experience would make him a poor attorney general.

“Having been the first assistant attorney general makes me ready on day one, but it’s also that I’ve been a prosecutor, I’ve been in court, I’ve sat in front of a judge, stood in front of a judge, argued cases, and he has never done any of those things. And we think those things should matter,” Roy emphasized.

Middleton has pushed back, questioning Roy’s conservative credentials and run ads claiming Roy’s “betrayed MAGA” as he’s pointed to the times the congressman has broken with Trump over policy.

“Chip Roy has someone that has spent a decade fighting the president. He actually said President Trump committed impeachable conduct on the House floor,” Middleton told Fox News Digital. “Instead of spending 10 years fighting President Trump, what have I done? I’ve spent 10 years, fighting to defeat the left, which is what matters the most in this race.”

But Roy, responding, said “everyone knows that I’m a longtime defender and supporter of the president’s agenda, of the America First agenda, the MAGA agenda, but I’m also an independent thinker who will stand up and make the case. And pointing to Middleton, Roy charged, “MAGA is not something you just buy. My opponent thinks you can buy the brand.”

Middleton returned fire, arguing “Chip Roy is putting out there that he is a top ally to President Trump when the exact opposite is the case.”

Roy, showcasing his electability, said “I beat Democrats before in a tough race” and that he “knows how to win.”

The winner of the GOP runoff will likely face Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson, who came close to clinching his party’s nomination in the primary. Johnson is facing off against former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski.

Also in the spotlight are Democratic and GOP runoffs in the redrawn majority-Latino 35th Congressional District,

Democratic Party leaders are slamming housing activist and sex therapist Maureen Galindo for her Instagram post on imprisoning American Zionists at an ICE detention center. She added that the prison would have a castration facility for pedophiles, which she claimed would likely include “most of the Zionists.

She also said that her rival in the runoff, Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Johnny Garcia, should be tried for treason over his support for Israel.

The comments have spurred support for Garcia, who’s running as a moderate. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Texas Democratic Party, Talarico, and even progressive champion Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have backed Garcia.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face off against either Republican state Rep. John Lujan or Carlos De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran and brother of Rep. Monica De La Cruz of Texas.

In the solidly blue, Houston-based 18th Congressional District, 78-year-old Democratic Rep. Al Green will face off with recently-elected 38-year-old Rep. Christian Menefee, for a seat redrawn last year by Republicans as part of their congressional redistricting push.

Democratic Rep. Julie Johnson is running against former Rep. Colin Allred in the Democratic-dominated, Dallas-based, 33rd Congressional District.

And in the newly drawn 9th Congressional District, a right-tilting seat in the Houston area, Trump-endorsed Army veteran Alex Mealer faces Abbott-endorsed state Rep. Briscoe Cain.

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