FBI Director Testifies Trump Shooter Flew Drone Around Rally Area Two Hours Before Assassination Attempt

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified Wednesday in a House Judiciary Committee hearing that the man who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump flew a drone around the Butler, Pennsylvania rally area in the hours before the shooting.

Thomas Matthew Crooks , age 20, climbed on top of the roof of a nearby building a fired multiple shots at Trump, grazing the former president’s ear and killing one rally attendee and wounding others before being shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper. Bipartisan outrage over the failure to include the building Crooks used in the security perimeter or otherwise prevent him from being able to climb onto the roof has already led to the resignation of Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle and investigations are ongoing.

Wray testified that the FBI had “recovered a drone that the shooter appears to have used,” which was “being exploited and analyzed by the FBI lab.” The drone was in the shooter’s vehicle along with its controller during the shooting, and it was recovered there by officials investigating the scene.

He added that it appeared that Crooks had flown the drone for about 11 minutes around “3:50 pm, 4:00 pm, in that window, on the day of the shooting” around the area, not the stage itself where Trump would speak roughly two hours later, but the vicinity “about 200 yards, give or take, away from that.”

The FBI believed Crooks had been live streaming to view the footage, said Wray, noting that conclusion was “qualified because of our ongoing review.”

Wray continued his testimony, talking about the explosive devices found in the shooter’s car, telling the committee that the FBI had recovered three devices in his vehicle and one at his residence. He described them as “relatively crude devices themselves, but they did have the ability to be detonated remotely.” Investigators also found in Crooks’ vehicle two of the receivers for those explosive devices, and another receiver was found on him.

Again emphasizing that the review was “ongoing” and he could not say for certain, but it did appear that if Crooks had tried to detonate those devices from the roof, “it would not have worked, but that doesn’t mean the explosives weren’t dangerous.”

Watch the clip above via CNN .