FBI sparks questions with claims it cannot access Trump shooter’s phone
The FBI claims it is unable to access a cell phone that belonged to Thomas Crooks, identified as the gunman who tried to assassinate Trump on Saturday.
FBI ‘haven’t been able to get any data’
“An FBI official told Fox News they believe the shooter acted alone. We’re also learning that they can’t get into his cell phone,” Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham reported. “They have it at Quantico but haven’t been able to get any data out of it.”
The news sparked questions on social media, including from notable figures like X owner Elon Musk. “How do they know he acted alone if they can’t get into his phone?” asked Musk, who was echoed by other users.
Many netizens also wondered how the FBI, notorious for accessing the phones of its political opponents, are flummoxed about how to crack into Trump’s would-be assassin’s device.
“This is very suspicious,” wrote one user. “They can get into phones of J6ers no be [sic] problem but this one is a doozie.”
“Have someone change the evidence tag to ‘J6 grandmother’,” said another.
FBI accessed phones belonging to J6 attendees
Last year the FBI was able to access the cell phone belonging to Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), a Trump ally who the bureau said had ties to January 6th. FBI agents seized Perry’s phone without warning the day after the agency raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
The FBI did the same to at least eight other Trump associates, seizing their phones and extracting the data, ostensibly as part of an investigation into the events on January 6th.
FBI hacked mass shooter’s iPhone
In 2015, after Farook Malik, who was in contact with al-Qaeda, and Tashfeen Malik, who expressed "allegiance to ISIS," opened fire at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California and killed 14 people, the FBI asked for Apple’s help in accessing Farook’s cell phone. Apple refused, so the FBI enlisted the help of an Australian hacking firm that was able to access the device.
FBI and Pegasus
In 2022, The New York TImes revealed that the FBI had purchased The Phantom, a version of the notorious Pegasus spyware that gives the bureau the ability to access any iPhone or Android phone in the United States.
FBI illegally spied on American taxpayers at least 278,000 times
A provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) referred to as Section 702 allows intelligence agencies to conduct targeted surveillance of non-US citizens overseas. Intelligence analysts run specific identifiers about the target through a database, such as a name or email address, and can then collect data on the person’s communications.
Court documents unsealed last year revealed that between 2020 and early 2021, FBI operatives ran 278,000 targeted requests on American citizens through the Section 702 database. Some were targeted “in connection with civil unrest and protests” that were plaguing the country after George Floyd’s death. Others were targeted because of their political affiliations. An FBI analyst ran a batch query on 19,000 Americans who donated to a certain political party because the party was “a target of foreign influence”. Following January 6th, the FBI ran 23,132 search queries on Americans.
