Michelle Obama reveals 'nightmare' navigating daughters' teenage years in public eye
Michelle Obama admits navigating her daughters' teenage years was a "nightmare".
The former first lady of the United States - who has Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23 with her husband Barack Obama - has opened up on the struggle the high profile parents had with keeping their daughters' personal lives out of the spotlight, and she described it as "a lot of work".
Speaking on SixiusXM's 'Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa', she recalled: "They had to drive and they had to go to prom and they were on teams and they traveled to other schools and they had to do college searches, and they went to parties and they had drinks, and they tried out smoking and they did all the things.
"And every weekend was a nightmare, because we had to work to make sure that them being regular teenagers didn't wind up on Page Six."
Michelle, 61, admitted keeping her daughter's experimentation behind closed doors was tough.
There was also a lot to consider when it came to something as simple as "play dates" with other children from school.
She explained: "When your kids are under the security of the Secret Service, you almost have to work twice as hard to make their life normal.
"Imagine setting up the first play date or the first time the kids get invited to a play date.
"The process of having my children at your house meant that an advanced team had to come and question and search your house and ask if you had drugs and guns."
Michelle joked that her children still have "the Obama tax" in their lives as kids of a former US president, while there is a balancing act to strike.
She quipped: "We call that the Obama tax for them. You'll have it the rest of your life, but you also have a lot of benefits.
"I'm trying to make this feel normal to them, because you don't want them to start thinking, number one, they're full of themselves, that any of this is about them and that their job is to go about their lives.
"This world is not about you. This is just your dad's job."
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Sydney Morning Herald
15 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
The quiet unravelling of the man who almost killed Trump
New York/Dallas: Thomas Crooks was acting strangely. Sometimes he danced around his bedroom late into the night. Other times, he talked to himself with his hands waving around. These unusual behaviours intensified last US summer, after he graduated with high honours from a community college. He also visited a shooting range, grew out his thin brown hair and searched online for 'major depressive disorder' and 'depression crisis'. His father noticed the shift – mental health problems ran in the family. On the afternoon of July 13, Crooks told his parents he was heading to the range and left home with a rifle. Hours later, he mounted a roof at a presidential campaign rally in western Pennsylvania and tried to assassinate Donald Trump. That scene has been etched into American history. After a bullet grazed Trump's ear, he lifted his blood-streaked face, pumped his fist and shouted the words: 'Fight! Fight! Fight!' Trump has said that God saved him in order to save America, and the White House recently unveiled a statue in the Oval Office commemorating the moment. The near miss revealed alarming security lapses that allowed an amateur marksman barely out of his teens to fire at a former president less than 150 metres away. And it galvanised support for Trump, inspiring voters who saw him as a righteous hero triumphing in the face of smear campaigns, relentless prosecutions and even an attempt on his life. Now, nearly a year later, with Trump in his second presidential term, much of the world has forgotten about the 20-year-old who set out to murder him. Crooks – who also killed a bystander and wounded two others before being shot dead by the Secret Service – had kept to himself and seemed to leave little behind. His motive was a mystery, and remains the source of many conspiracy theories. A New York Times examination of the last years of the young man's life found that he went through a gradual and largely hidden transformation, from a meek engineering student critical of political polarisation to a focused killer who tried to build bombs. For months, he operated in secret, using aliases and encrypted networks, all while showing hints of a mental illness that may have caused his mind to unravel to an extent not previously reported. Loading This account offers the fullest picture yet of Crooks' life. Although many aspects of his background and mental health are still unknown, the Times' reporting is based on thousands of pages of his school assignments, emails and logs of his internet activity, as well as text messages, government reports and interviews with dozens of people who knew him or were familiar with the case. Crooks followed his dark path with seemingly little notice from those closest to him. He stockpiled explosive materials in the small house he shared with his parents in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. When his face was plastered across the news, his classmates couldn't believe it. Investigators later found a crude homemade bomb inside his bedroom, not far from where his parents slept. His parents, Matthew and Mary Crooks, did not respond to interview requests, and their lawyers declined to comment. But on the night of the shooting, Matthew Crooks told federal agents that he had been concerned about his son's visits to the gun club. 'I should have known better,' Matthew Crooks said, one of the agents later told congressional investigators. 'A really intelligent kid' Before his deadly assault, Thomas Crooks' only record of trouble was a lunch detention in middle school for chewing gum. In high school, he earned a top score on the SAT – 1530 out of a possible 1600 – and received perfect marks on three Advanced Placement exams, according to his academic records. He did not socialise much, but came out of his shell in a technology program in which he built computers. His teacher, Xavier Harmon, nicknamed him 'Muscles' – an ironic nod to his slight frame – which made him laugh. One high school classmate said Crooks enjoyed talking about the economy and cryptocurrencies, encouraging others to invest. On the rare occasions when the conversation turned to politics, he seemed to be in the middle of the road. On former president Joe Biden's inauguration day in January 2021, Crooks donated $US15 to a committee backing Democrats. But when he turned 18 that autumn, he registered as a Republican. His family's political affiliations were as diverse as the swing state they lived in: his older sister, Katherine, and his father were registered as Libertarians, and his mother was a Democrat. Crooks enrolled in the Community College of Allegheny County. He was the kind of student others sought out for help, and a regular member of a math book club, though he didn't appear to hang out with friends outside school. He endeared himself to his professors not just with high marks but also for showing up at office hours and trading emails about how to improve his work. 'He seemed like a really intelligent kid – I thought he would be able to do whatever he wanted,' said Trish Thompson, who taught Crooks engineering. In her class, he designed a chessboard for visually impaired people like his mother. Crooks was close with his immediate family, according to a video he recorded in the autumn of 2022 for an oral communication class. He described preparing Thanksgiving turkey with his father and baking Christmas cookies with his mother, saying, 'I don't think there's any better way to spend time with family than cooking meals together'. Another assignment in that class required him to speak in front of five adults. He asked the professor for an exception, as he had only his parents and possibly his sister. 'I do not have access to any other adults,' he wrote. In April 2023, Crooks showed a glimpse of his frustration with American politics. In an essay arguing for ranked-choice voting, he lamented 'divisive and incendiary campaigns which are pulling the country apart'. 'As we move closer to the 2024 elections, we should consider carefully the means by which we elect our officials,' Crooks wrote. 'We need an election system that promotes kindness and co-operation instead of division and anger.' Around the time he wrote the essay, he began using an alias to buy from online firearms vendors, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He would make at least 25 gun-related purchases before the fateful rally. Declining mental health Crooks bought a membership in August 2023 to the Clairton Sportsmen's Club, a shooting range about 30 minutes from his home. This was not unusual in his community, and his father was a gun enthusiast. By the end of the year, he was visiting the range roughly once a week, including on Christmas Day. Through a public records request, the Times obtained logs of Crooks' internet activity while he was signed in to the community college network. The records are somewhat limited: they show website domains rather than specific pages, and Crooks often used an encrypted connection to obscure his online footprint. Loading Still, the digital trail suggests he was focused on Trump, the news and guns. On December 6, 2023, about seven months before the shooting, he rapidly cycled through about a dozen news websites, including CNN, The New York Times and Fox News, before visiting the Trump administration's archives, the logs show. Minutes later, he visited seven gun websites, including one focused on the AR-15, similar to the rifle he would use in the attack. Later that day, he paid a visit to the shooting range. The next month, he placed a $US101.91 order online for more than 7.5 litres of nitro methane, a fuel additive that can be used in explosives, giving his home address for delivery. The package did not arrive promptly. 'I have not received any updates of the order shipping out yet,' he wrote to the seller on January 31, 2024. He used his community college email account, but included a screenshot of his order confirmation showing he had provided an encrypted email address. 'I was wondering if you still have it and when I can expect it to come.' On February 26, a couple of hours before a physics class, he visited a series of websites, including an ammunition manufacturer, the Trump campaign site and NBC News, as well as YouTube, Reddit, Spotify and a site for Xbox users. Interviews with his teachers, friends and co-workers suggest that many people who interacted with him regularly did not know he was troubled, let alone capable of premeditated murder. He had worked for years as a part-time dietary aide at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre. Employees said Crooks was punctual and dependable, though he didn't talk much. He showed up for work in the weeks before the shooting and nothing seemed amiss. 'What I heard from people in his department is that there was no clear indications of changes in his behaviour or routine,' said Reggie Brown, a former human resources manager at the centre. After back-to-back semesters on the dean's list, he earned his associate degree in engineering and was set to transfer to Robert Morris University. He had told classmates he hoped to have a career in aerospace or robotics. His father noticed his mental health declining in the year before the shooting, and particularly in the months after graduation. He later told investigators that he had seen his son talking to himself and dancing around his bedroom late at night, and that his family had a history of mental health and addiction issues, according to a report from the Pennsylvania State Police, parts of which were shared with the Times. The younger Crooks was also making the depression-related queries online, investigators found. Republican congressman Clay Higgins, who worked on a congressional task force on the shooting, told the Times that he learnt worrisome information about Crooks' mental health while investigating the case on a trip to Pennsylvania. He was 'having conversations with someone that wasn't there', Higgins said, adding that many questions remained unanswered. 'There was a mysteriousness to Thomas Crooks' descent into madness.' In the final month before the shooting, Crooks conducted more than 60 searches related to Trump and Biden, the FBI said. And yet there were hints that he hadn't fully committed to an attack. 'When can I expect the diploma to be mailed?' he wrote to his college registrar. About a week before the shooting, Crooks' internet searches became especially focused, the FBI said. On July 6, he registered for Trump's rally at the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, and searched, 'How far was Oswald from Kennedy?' In his remaining days, he looked up where Trump would be speaking on the site. Just after 6pm on July 13, Crooks fired eight bullets towards Trump. Investigators later found two explosive devices in the trunk of the car that he had driven there. Loading As word spread the next day that he was the gunman, one of his few friends from community college reached out. 'Hey Thomas, you weren't the person who tried to shoot Trump and then got killed right?' texted the friend, who was interviewed by the Times but requested anonymity because he feared being associated with Crooks. 'I really liked you as a friend and I desperately don't want you to be dead.' A homemade explosive Shortly before 11pm on the night of the shooting, Crooks' father called 911, saying he had not seen his son since that afternoon. 'We've gotten no contact from him, no text messages, nothing's been returned, and he's not home yet,' Matthew Crooks told the operator. 'That's totally not like him,' he added. 'So we're kind of worried, not really sure what we should do.' Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had begun surveilling the 93-square-metre house, according to a transcript of agent testimony provided to Congress. Loading About 11.40pm, the agents approached the house. Matthew Crooks opened the screen door and asked, 'Is it true?' They entered and noticed Mary Crooks sitting with the family cat in the living room, television on. The agents swept the house for potential dangers. Down a short hallway was the young Crooks' bedroom, door open. The room was fairly organised, with a made bed and large 3D printer. An empty pistol belt and holster lay on the floor. At the room's threshold, an agent looked down and saw a .50-calibre, military-grade ammunition can 'with a white wire coming out', according to the testimony. The agent also observed a jug labelled 'nitro methane' in the closet. The agents immediately evacuated. While they waited for the bomb squad, they interviewed Matthew and Mary Crooks outside late into the night, asking about their family and what made their son 'tick'. The parents were calm and polite. They said Thomas loved building things, like computers, and visiting the gun range. They didn't think he had any friends or girlfriends. His father said he didn't 'know anything' about his son, according to the testimony. On the subject of politics, Matthew Crooks said his son would 'go back and forth and kind of argue both sides', an agent testified. The father said Thomas would talk about Trump and Biden, but 'never really indicated that he liked one or the other more'. Mary Crooks, who had been mostly quiet, spoke up to ask if her son was really dead. The agent told her yes, and she began to cry. Her husband 'put his hand out and said, you know, 'It's OK. It's not true until we see the body'', the agent testified. The couple has kept a low profile since the shooting. This spring, Crooks left the job she had held for 27 years – as a rehabilitation therapist for the visually impaired at a state agency – because of the shooting, according to a resignation letter obtained by the Times. 'Certain circumstances have left me with no other option,' she wrote. Matthew Crooks had been in social services for more than two decades, first working with spina bifida patients and later managing the medical care of patients in a Pittsburgh health system. The health system declined to say whether he still worked there. Madeleine Frizzi, the mother of Mary Crooks, was short when asked about her daughter and son-in-law. 'I do not have any contact with them – whatsoever,' she said, declining to elaborate. A cloud of conspiracy theories The FBI has led the investigation into Crooks, working with the ATF and the Pennsylvania State Police. In the weeks after the shooting, the FBI released preliminary findings based on details gleaned from interviews and Crooks' devices suggesting he had been planning an attack for over a year. In a news conference late last July, FBI officials said they had not found evidence of mental health treatment, institutionalisation or medications. The next month, the agency said Crooks had begun searching online about how to make explosives as early as 2019, when he was 16, but did not elaborate on the timeline. Investigators said they had not uncovered a motive or any co-conspirators. In the absence of new information, conspiracy theories about Crooks have grown. Some have claimed he had an accomplice, or that he was an agent of the so-called deep state. Kelly Little, who lives across the street from the Crooks' house, said another theory floating around claimed she and other neighbours had built underground tunnels to aid the shooter. 'Why do we still know nothing about that guy in Butler?' Elon Musk asked in February in front of a large crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. 'Kash is going to get to the bottom of it,' he added, referring to Trump's FBI director, Kash Patel. The crowd cheered. Loading But in a recent interview on Fox News, Patel at his side, Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, said there was simply no 'big, explosive there there'. He added, 'If it was there, we would have told you.' Helen Comperatore, an avid Trump supporter whose husband, Corey, was killed by Crooks, still wants to know more. She told the Times she had not received any official updates from investigators in months and felt she was owed a fuller explanation of what had happened. 'I am praying the president gets to the bottom of it and keeps working on this case for me – and him,' she said.
The Age
15 hours ago
- The Age
The quiet unravelling of the man who almost killed Trump
New York/Dallas: Thomas Crooks was acting strangely. Sometimes he danced around his bedroom late into the night. Other times, he talked to himself with his hands waving around. These unusual behaviours intensified last US summer, after he graduated with high honours from a community college. He also visited a shooting range, grew out his thin brown hair and searched online for 'major depressive disorder' and 'depression crisis'. His father noticed the shift – mental health problems ran in the family. On the afternoon of July 13, Crooks told his parents he was heading to the range and left home with a rifle. Hours later, he mounted a roof at a presidential campaign rally in western Pennsylvania and tried to assassinate Donald Trump. That scene has been etched into American history. After a bullet grazed Trump's ear, he lifted his blood-streaked face, pumped his fist and shouted the words: 'Fight! Fight! Fight!' Trump has said that God saved him in order to save America, and the White House recently unveiled a statue in the Oval Office commemorating the moment. The near miss revealed alarming security lapses that allowed an amateur marksman barely out of his teens to fire at a former president less than 150 metres away. And it galvanised support for Trump, inspiring voters who saw him as a righteous hero triumphing in the face of smear campaigns, relentless prosecutions and even an attempt on his life. Now, nearly a year later, with Trump in his second presidential term, much of the world has forgotten about the 20-year-old who set out to murder him. Crooks – who also killed a bystander and wounded two others before being shot dead by the Secret Service – had kept to himself and seemed to leave little behind. His motive was a mystery, and remains the source of many conspiracy theories. A New York Times examination of the last years of the young man's life found that he went through a gradual and largely hidden transformation, from a meek engineering student critical of political polarisation to a focused killer who tried to build bombs. For months, he operated in secret, using aliases and encrypted networks, all while showing hints of a mental illness that may have caused his mind to unravel to an extent not previously reported. Loading This account offers the fullest picture yet of Crooks' life. Although many aspects of his background and mental health are still unknown, the Times' reporting is based on thousands of pages of his school assignments, emails and logs of his internet activity, as well as text messages, government reports and interviews with dozens of people who knew him or were familiar with the case. Crooks followed his dark path with seemingly little notice from those closest to him. He stockpiled explosive materials in the small house he shared with his parents in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. When his face was plastered across the news, his classmates couldn't believe it. Investigators later found a crude homemade bomb inside his bedroom, not far from where his parents slept. His parents, Matthew and Mary Crooks, did not respond to interview requests, and their lawyers declined to comment. But on the night of the shooting, Matthew Crooks told federal agents that he had been concerned about his son's visits to the gun club. 'I should have known better,' Matthew Crooks said, one of the agents later told congressional investigators. 'A really intelligent kid' Before his deadly assault, Thomas Crooks' only record of trouble was a lunch detention in middle school for chewing gum. In high school, he earned a top score on the SAT – 1530 out of a possible 1600 – and received perfect marks on three Advanced Placement exams, according to his academic records. He did not socialise much, but came out of his shell in a technology program in which he built computers. His teacher, Xavier Harmon, nicknamed him 'Muscles' – an ironic nod to his slight frame – which made him laugh. One high school classmate said Crooks enjoyed talking about the economy and cryptocurrencies, encouraging others to invest. On the rare occasions when the conversation turned to politics, he seemed to be in the middle of the road. On former president Joe Biden's inauguration day in January 2021, Crooks donated $US15 to a committee backing Democrats. But when he turned 18 that autumn, he registered as a Republican. His family's political affiliations were as diverse as the swing state they lived in: his older sister, Katherine, and his father were registered as Libertarians, and his mother was a Democrat. Crooks enrolled in the Community College of Allegheny County. He was the kind of student others sought out for help, and a regular member of a math book club, though he didn't appear to hang out with friends outside school. He endeared himself to his professors not just with high marks but also for showing up at office hours and trading emails about how to improve his work. 'He seemed like a really intelligent kid – I thought he would be able to do whatever he wanted,' said Trish Thompson, who taught Crooks engineering. In her class, he designed a chessboard for visually impaired people like his mother. Crooks was close with his immediate family, according to a video he recorded in the autumn of 2022 for an oral communication class. He described preparing Thanksgiving turkey with his father and baking Christmas cookies with his mother, saying, 'I don't think there's any better way to spend time with family than cooking meals together'. Another assignment in that class required him to speak in front of five adults. He asked the professor for an exception, as he had only his parents and possibly his sister. 'I do not have access to any other adults,' he wrote. In April 2023, Crooks showed a glimpse of his frustration with American politics. In an essay arguing for ranked-choice voting, he lamented 'divisive and incendiary campaigns which are pulling the country apart'. 'As we move closer to the 2024 elections, we should consider carefully the means by which we elect our officials,' Crooks wrote. 'We need an election system that promotes kindness and co-operation instead of division and anger.' Around the time he wrote the essay, he began using an alias to buy from online firearms vendors, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He would make at least 25 gun-related purchases before the fateful rally. Declining mental health Crooks bought a membership in August 2023 to the Clairton Sportsmen's Club, a shooting range about 30 minutes from his home. This was not unusual in his community, and his father was a gun enthusiast. By the end of the year, he was visiting the range roughly once a week, including on Christmas Day. Through a public records request, the Times obtained logs of Crooks' internet activity while he was signed in to the community college network. The records are somewhat limited: they show website domains rather than specific pages, and Crooks often used an encrypted connection to obscure his online footprint. Loading Still, the digital trail suggests he was focused on Trump, the news and guns. On December 6, 2023, about seven months before the shooting, he rapidly cycled through about a dozen news websites, including CNN, The New York Times and Fox News, before visiting the Trump administration's archives, the logs show. Minutes later, he visited seven gun websites, including one focused on the AR-15, similar to the rifle he would use in the attack. Later that day, he paid a visit to the shooting range. The next month, he placed a $US101.91 order online for more than 7.5 litres of nitro methane, a fuel additive that can be used in explosives, giving his home address for delivery. The package did not arrive promptly. 'I have not received any updates of the order shipping out yet,' he wrote to the seller on January 31, 2024. He used his community college email account, but included a screenshot of his order confirmation showing he had provided an encrypted email address. 'I was wondering if you still have it and when I can expect it to come.' On February 26, a couple of hours before a physics class, he visited a series of websites, including an ammunition manufacturer, the Trump campaign site and NBC News, as well as YouTube, Reddit, Spotify and a site for Xbox users. Interviews with his teachers, friends and co-workers suggest that many people who interacted with him regularly did not know he was troubled, let alone capable of premeditated murder. He had worked for years as a part-time dietary aide at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre. Employees said Crooks was punctual and dependable, though he didn't talk much. He showed up for work in the weeks before the shooting and nothing seemed amiss. 'What I heard from people in his department is that there was no clear indications of changes in his behaviour or routine,' said Reggie Brown, a former human resources manager at the centre. After back-to-back semesters on the dean's list, he earned his associate degree in engineering and was set to transfer to Robert Morris University. He had told classmates he hoped to have a career in aerospace or robotics. His father noticed his mental health declining in the year before the shooting, and particularly in the months after graduation. He later told investigators that he had seen his son talking to himself and dancing around his bedroom late at night, and that his family had a history of mental health and addiction issues, according to a report from the Pennsylvania State Police, parts of which were shared with the Times. The younger Crooks was also making the depression-related queries online, investigators found. Republican congressman Clay Higgins, who worked on a congressional task force on the shooting, told the Times that he learnt worrisome information about Crooks' mental health while investigating the case on a trip to Pennsylvania. He was 'having conversations with someone that wasn't there', Higgins said, adding that many questions remained unanswered. 'There was a mysteriousness to Thomas Crooks' descent into madness.' In the final month before the shooting, Crooks conducted more than 60 searches related to Trump and Biden, the FBI said. And yet there were hints that he hadn't fully committed to an attack. 'When can I expect the diploma to be mailed?' he wrote to his college registrar. About a week before the shooting, Crooks' internet searches became especially focused, the FBI said. On July 6, he registered for Trump's rally at the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, and searched, 'How far was Oswald from Kennedy?' In his remaining days, he looked up where Trump would be speaking on the site. Just after 6pm on July 13, Crooks fired eight bullets towards Trump. Investigators later found two explosive devices in the trunk of the car that he had driven there. Loading As word spread the next day that he was the gunman, one of his few friends from community college reached out. 'Hey Thomas, you weren't the person who tried to shoot Trump and then got killed right?' texted the friend, who was interviewed by the Times but requested anonymity because he feared being associated with Crooks. 'I really liked you as a friend and I desperately don't want you to be dead.' A homemade explosive Shortly before 11pm on the night of the shooting, Crooks' father called 911, saying he had not seen his son since that afternoon. 'We've gotten no contact from him, no text messages, nothing's been returned, and he's not home yet,' Matthew Crooks told the operator. 'That's totally not like him,' he added. 'So we're kind of worried, not really sure what we should do.' Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had begun surveilling the 93-square-metre house, according to a transcript of agent testimony provided to Congress. Loading About 11.40pm, the agents approached the house. Matthew Crooks opened the screen door and asked, 'Is it true?' They entered and noticed Mary Crooks sitting with the family cat in the living room, television on. The agents swept the house for potential dangers. Down a short hallway was the young Crooks' bedroom, door open. The room was fairly organised, with a made bed and large 3D printer. An empty pistol belt and holster lay on the floor. At the room's threshold, an agent looked down and saw a .50-calibre, military-grade ammunition can 'with a white wire coming out', according to the testimony. The agent also observed a jug labelled 'nitro methane' in the closet. The agents immediately evacuated. While they waited for the bomb squad, they interviewed Matthew and Mary Crooks outside late into the night, asking about their family and what made their son 'tick'. The parents were calm and polite. They said Thomas loved building things, like computers, and visiting the gun range. They didn't think he had any friends or girlfriends. His father said he didn't 'know anything' about his son, according to the testimony. On the subject of politics, Matthew Crooks said his son would 'go back and forth and kind of argue both sides', an agent testified. The father said Thomas would talk about Trump and Biden, but 'never really indicated that he liked one or the other more'. Mary Crooks, who had been mostly quiet, spoke up to ask if her son was really dead. The agent told her yes, and she began to cry. Her husband 'put his hand out and said, you know, 'It's OK. It's not true until we see the body'', the agent testified. The couple has kept a low profile since the shooting. This spring, Crooks left the job she had held for 27 years – as a rehabilitation therapist for the visually impaired at a state agency – because of the shooting, according to a resignation letter obtained by the Times. 'Certain circumstances have left me with no other option,' she wrote. Matthew Crooks had been in social services for more than two decades, first working with spina bifida patients and later managing the medical care of patients in a Pittsburgh health system. The health system declined to say whether he still worked there. Madeleine Frizzi, the mother of Mary Crooks, was short when asked about her daughter and son-in-law. 'I do not have any contact with them – whatsoever,' she said, declining to elaborate. A cloud of conspiracy theories The FBI has led the investigation into Crooks, working with the ATF and the Pennsylvania State Police. In the weeks after the shooting, the FBI released preliminary findings based on details gleaned from interviews and Crooks' devices suggesting he had been planning an attack for over a year. In a news conference late last July, FBI officials said they had not found evidence of mental health treatment, institutionalisation or medications. The next month, the agency said Crooks had begun searching online about how to make explosives as early as 2019, when he was 16, but did not elaborate on the timeline. Investigators said they had not uncovered a motive or any co-conspirators. In the absence of new information, conspiracy theories about Crooks have grown. Some have claimed he had an accomplice, or that he was an agent of the so-called deep state. Kelly Little, who lives across the street from the Crooks' house, said another theory floating around claimed she and other neighbours had built underground tunnels to aid the shooter. 'Why do we still know nothing about that guy in Butler?' Elon Musk asked in February in front of a large crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. 'Kash is going to get to the bottom of it,' he added, referring to Trump's FBI director, Kash Patel. The crowd cheered. Loading But in a recent interview on Fox News, Patel at his side, Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, said there was simply no 'big, explosive there there'. He added, 'If it was there, we would have told you.' Helen Comperatore, an avid Trump supporter whose husband, Corey, was killed by Crooks, still wants to know more. She told the Times she had not received any official updates from investigators in months and felt she was owed a fuller explanation of what had happened. 'I am praying the president gets to the bottom of it and keeps working on this case for me – and him,' she said.
ABC News
4 days ago
- ABC News
Elon Musk backed Donald Trump seconds after an assassination attempt. Now their relationship has turned ugly
On July 13, 2024, the world's richest man took to the social media platform he had bought himself and made a dramatic declaration. Seconds earlier, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump had been the victim of an attempted assassination. As Mr Trump — bleeding from the ear and raising a fist in the air — was rushed offstage by Secret Service agents, Tesla CEO Elon Musk officially endorsed him for president. "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery," he wrote on X. The statement marked a controversial new era for both men. That age would come to an end just 10 months later — with Mr Musk, sporting a black baseball cap and a black eye to match, announcing his departure from the White House. This week, their partnership took its ugliest turn. This is far from the first time the two men have crossed paths or butted heads. During the 2016 election campaign, Mr Musk said in an interview he thought Mr Trump "was not the right guy". "He just doesn't seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States," the South African-born tech chief told CNBC. At the time he said Mr Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, had the "right" economic policies. But just a month later — following Mr Trump's shock win on election night — he would accept a position on a federal advisory council alongside other Silicon Valley elites. More than 580 tech industry employees had already signed an open letter condemning the Trump administration's planned policies to collect data on minority groups. Mr Musk was not among them. He stepped down from his position on the president's advisory councils less than six months after being appointed. Mr Trump had just announced the US would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement — a move he would repeat during his second term. He told followers on X — which he had yet to purchase at the time — he had done "all I can to advise directly to POTUS" and other White House officials. The decision, Mr Musk said, left him "no choice" but to walk away. By the end of Mr Trump's first term, he had again set his sights on rekindling the relationship with Mr Musk. The president marvelled at his SpaceX rockets in an 2020 interview with CNBC. "He likes rockets," Mr Trump told the outlet. "And he does good at rockets, too, by the way. "I never saw where the engines come down with no wings, no anything, and they're landing. I said, 'I've never seen that before.'" He dubbed Mr Musk one of the "great geniuses" of the modern age, "one of our very smart people". Two years later the relationship had soured again. Mr Musk, according to the then-presidential candidate, was "another bulls*** artist". Mr Trump, according to the Tesla CEO, needed to "hang up his hat and sail into the sunset". After ultimately being forced to follow through on his plan to buy Twitter — now X — Mr Musk reversed a ban on Mr Trump's account. As the campaign trail heated up, however, Mr Musk announced he would not be donating to any presidential candidate, and would not endorse the Republican or Democratic parties. The Pennsylvania assassination attempt appeared to change his mind. According to the Washington Post, Mr Musk would in just months become the biggest individual political donor of the 2024 election. Mr Musk made his first public appearance alongside the presidential candidate in August, jumping up on down on stage. "I'm not just MAGA," he told the crowd, referencing his black "Make America Great Again" cap. The number of public appearances and statements supporting the Trump campaign would only increase in the weeks leading up to election day. Mr Musk's America PAC launched a giveaway, giving away $US1 million ($1.54 million) a day to voters in swing states. The contest continued despite a legal challenge arguing it violated election laws. On election night, Mr Musk joined Mr Trump and other elite members of the campaign at the Mar-a-Lago resort. "Game, set and match," he wrote on X. Shortly after the sweeping win, Mr Trump announced a controversial new position for Mr Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. The two tech industry leaders were set to run "DOGE", the Department of Government Efficiency, with the name being a reference to one of Mr Musk's favourite online memes. "Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies," Mr Trump said. "Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DOGE for a very long time. "Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 trillion dollars of government spending." Mr Ramaswamy would walk away from the project within weeks. His departure left the president's new "first buddy" undeterred. Mr Trump did not always appear comfortable with the public scrutiny regarding their close relationship. Just a month before his second inauguration, Mr Trump referenced growing complaints about Mr Musk's role at a public appearance in Arizona. "No, he's not taking the presidency," he said in December. "No, no, that's not happening." Meanwhile reports by White House insiders and former campaigners swirled that the then president-elect had become "annoyed" with Mr Musk. The tech CEO had sparked a "civil war" between himself and high-profile MAGA allies over H1B visas, which are short-term visas given out to foreign workers, often by tech companies, for specialised US jobs. A controversial gesture made on stage at a post-inauguration event by Mr Musk also stole headlines internationally. His son, then-three-year-old X, appeared to shush the president in the Oval Office, seeming to tell him to "shush your mouth" in video taken by media. Mr Musk took to the stage again at a conservative conference wielding a bedazzled "chainsaw for democracy". The Trump administration was forced to argue in court that Mr Musk was not the "head" of DOGE, and US political media outlets reported on numerous behind-the-scenes clashes with White House officials. Mr Musk was simultaneously facing turmoil outside the White House — by March Tesla shares had lost more than 50 per cent of their market value. The company had hit its longest streak of losses since its debut on 2010, with the sharp decline linked to the Trump administration's rapidly changing tariff plans. In an apparent attempt to throw a lifeline to his "best buddy", Mr Trump turned the White House's South Lawn into a temporary Tesla showroom. He personally inspected five vehicles in front of media, declaring them "beautiful". "The one I like is that one, and I want the same colour," he said, pointing to a red car. Mr Trump declared on his Truth Social platform he would buy Tesla. Days later during a Fox News interview, Mr Musk became emotional when asked about the performance of his companies. Asked how he managed multiple businesses and his government role, he said: "With great difficulty." At the same time, DOGE was facing widespread criticism for a lack of transparency and failure to reach its stated savings goals. The advisory body has defunded multiple programs and made mass lay-offs, citing "fraud and abuse" and "woke" policies since it was first formed. By the end of May, Mr Musk would make a subdued departure. On May 30, Mr Musk arrived for a news conference at the Oval Office, sporting a black eye and a black DOGE cap. He told media the injury had occurred while playing rough with his youngest child. Arms crossed and head-down, he announced his time in the White House was over and accepted a golden key to the White House from the president. "Elon's really not leaving," Mr Trump said. The relationship between both men appeared to have fizzled out into quiet indifference — for a few days. Mr Musk then criticised Mr Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill", a sweeping budget reconciliation bill to fast-track spending policy. The more than 1,000-page document, which he labelled "pork-filled" and "outrageous", would scrap electric vehicle subsidies among other changes. On Thursday night, local time, the fallout intensified on each of their social media platforms. On X, Mr Musk appeared to take credit for the election outcome. "Without me, Trump would have lost the election," he said. Mr Trump then declared on Truth Social he had asked Mr Musk to leave the White House. "Elon was 'wearing thin'," he said. "I asked him to leave, I took away his [electric vehicle] mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY! "The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's government subsidies and contracts. "I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!" Mr Musk labelled the accusations he went "crazy" as an "obvious lie", before hitting back with his own claims. "[Donald Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!" The Trump administration has yet to respond to the allegation, which referred to documents relating to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who died in a prison cell. Being mentioned in the files does not necessarily mean any wrongdoing. Mr Trump told media on Thursday he was "very disappointed" in Mr Musk. "Look, Elon and I had a great relationship," he said. "I don't know if we will anymore.
