{"id":79800,"date":"2026-10-10T14:55:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T19:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/10\/judicial-watchs-thomas-fitton-slams-fbis-drip-drip-release-for-75000-pages-of-trump-butler-shooting-files\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T14:55:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T19:55:41","slug":"judicial-watchs-thomas-fitton-slams-fbis-drip-drip-release-for-75000-pages-of-trump-butler-shooting-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/10\/judicial-watchs-thomas-fitton-slams-fbis-drip-drip-release-for-75000-pages-of-trump-butler-shooting-files\/","title":{"rendered":"Judicial Watch’s Thomas Fitton slams FBI’s ‘drip-drip’ release for 75,000 pages of Trump-Butler shooting files"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judicial Watch President Thomas Fitton slammed the FBI<\/a> for slow-walking the release of documents related to Thomas Matthew Crooks’ 2024 assassination attempt on President Donald Trump during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n

“They are telling us that at current processing rates, the process will take 12 years. Under the FBI’s timeline, we won’t even be able to challenge what they withheld until 12 years from now. That is obviously unacceptable, and I would like to know what leadership at the FBI and DOJ<\/a> think about that position,” Fitton told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n

Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2025 after the FBI initially rejected a July 2024 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to the FBI investigation of Thomas Matthew Crooks’ assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

TRUMP’S ATTEMPTED ASSASSIN SENT MYSTERIOUS TEXTS ABOUT 3D PRINTER LEADING UP TO BUTLER, PA, SHOOTING: REPORT<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The lawsuit forced the release of multiple batches of documents to Judicial Watch, the most recent of which revealed a series of text messages Crooks sent<\/a> to an unknown recipient, whose name the FBI redacted before sending to Judicial Watch.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re receiving these documents because they’re part of the investigation, yet we\u2019re not being told who he was talking to,” Fitton told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n

GOP LAWMAKERS BLINDSIDED BY NEW REVELATIONS ABOUT TRUMP BUTLER SHOOTER: ‘AWFULLY STRANGE’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“Withholding that information is a very concerning decision. The American people want to be certain this isn’t another JFK situation. By handling it this way, authorities are creating the appearance of a cover-up. In part, that’s true, because they aren’t providing details about who Crooks was talking to, who was texting him, what they were saying, or who witnessed specific actions. It makes no sense to withhold this,” he said.<\/p>\n

The documents revealed a series of one or two-word texts Crooks sent to the redacted recipient between May 2023 and January 2024. The words appear unrelated and somewhat nonsensical.<\/p>\n

WOULD-BE TRUMP ASSASSIN THOMAS CROOKS HAD SNAPCHAT, WHICH MAY HOLD EVIDENCE ‘TREASURE TROVE’: FORMER FBI AGENT<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“Hello \u2026 Hello red \u2026Hello red \u2026 Hdudhdbdbbd \u2026 7888ejdj \u2026 Yolo \u2026 Ddodjjf \u2026 890 \u2026 Hdjd \u2026 Djdj \u2026 red \u2026 Yup red \u2026 Hello \u2026 Jhhhuuh \u2026 Hhdj \u2026 Jjjjjjjjjjjj \u2026 Hello red \u2026 Red red,” Crooks’ messages said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fitton, while acknowledging that any potential correspondents with Crooks have a reasonable expectation of privacy, argued that the FBI “must weigh that expectation of privacy against the public interest.”<\/p>\n

SECRET SERVICE MISSED ‘MULTIPLE OPPORTUNITIES’ TO PREVENT TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: WATCHDOG<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“The public interest in understanding how a former president was nearly killed<\/a> \u2013 and two American citizens were killed<\/a> \u2013 outweighs the privacy interests of anyone being protected in these documents. Unless the court speeds up the process, all we can do is speak out publicly to pressure the FBI and the Department of Justice to take ownership and stop stringing the American people along regarding the Butler assassination investigation,” he told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n

A previous batch of documents Judicial Watch obtained through FOIA also revealed that, shortly before Crooks climbed onto the roof of the AGR International building where he fired his weapon from, he engaged in a heated argument with rally attendees<\/a> on the ground.<\/p>\n

TWO MEN SHOT AT TRUMP’S BUTLER RALLY SUE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OVER SECRET SERVICE ‘PREVENTABLE FAILURES’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“Thomas Crooks was behaving erratically in a very public way at the rally. This wasn’t a case of someone furtively running around; he was getting into a verbal altercation with individuals about Trump and then immediately went up onto the roof. That just blows my mind,” Fitton told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n

Fitton complained that the shear numbers of the documents involved in the shooting call for a faster release process.<\/p>\n

“The entire release process involves approximately 75,000 pages. At 500 pages per month, it will take well over 12 years to review them all. To me, that is unacceptable,” he told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n

“It isn’t that hard. I believe the president wants it done, and it\u2019s frustrating that the FBI is taking its typical approach to transparency\u2014which is to offer very little,” he said.<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital contacted the FBI and U.S. Secret Service for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judicial Watch President Thomas Fitton slammed the FBI for slow-walking the release of documents related to Thomas Matthew Crooks’ 2024 assassination attempt on President Donald Trump during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. “They are telling us that at current processing rates, the process will take 12 years. Under the FBI’s timeline, we won’t … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}