EXPERT Q&A – As the FBI investigates the reasons why 20-year-old suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks may have targeted former president Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, largely uninformed social media speculation is driving a dangerous narrative intended to exploit existing political divides.
“The lethality of the anti-government, anti-authority movement has really increased on both sides, and I think that is showing in this attack,” former FBI Executive Assistant Director Jill Sanborn told The Cipher Brief just hours after the attack. “Unfortunately, while I’m a little bit shocked, this attack also corroborates what we’ve been seeing.”
The Cipher Brief spoke with Sanborn and her husband, retired FBI Agent Mike Sanborn – who was a lead investigator on an attempted assassination of then-President Barack Obama at the White House in 2011. We asked them both about Saturday’s attack, the FBI’s investigative responsibilities and how we should be thinking about what may be coming on the domestic terrorism front.
The Cipher Brief: The FBI is doing a deep-dive into the suspect’s background, trying to determine what may have prompted him to do something like this. How do all the agencies come together to do this quickly?
Jill Sanborn: You can’t understate the power of the partnerships and the importance of the task force environment in today’s law enforcement community. Everybody often thinks of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) when something like this happens, but it really transcends all threats. I think what you’ll see in this investigation is the power of those task forces. Everybody brings a unique capability or a unique database to the game. You’ll also see a lot of state and local partners and a lot of federal agencies working together to support the investigation here.
And you hit the nail on the head here when you said they are focused on the shooter’s background. That is priority, both for the Secret Service, who’s now asking, ‘How do we move forward and make sure that our candidate, our protectee, is protected given today’s environment? and then, the FBI, which will be the organization responsible for the actual investigation, is looking at who the shooter is. Does he have friends and associates? Is there a bigger threat out there? Is this a movement or is this a lone offender?
So, those will be things that are paramount in the FBI and its partners’ minds right now. And all that’ll be done with search warrants, and social media scrubs, and interviewing family, friends, associates. This will be sort of all people on deck to get to the bottom of this for sure.
The Cipher Brief: A 24/7 operation?
Jill Sanborn: 100%. You’ll see that both in field offices and at headquarters where they set up command posts focused only on this incident.
Mike Sanborn: This is the biggest case in the FBI right now. I was a lead on the assassination attempt against former President Barack Obama in 2011. So, I’m pretty well-versed in this. This is now the FBI’s jurisdiction.
Jill Sanborn: You also have a secondary investigation of a law enforcement shooting there that’s also going to have to be happen which occurs anytime a law enforcement officer engages their weapon, that investigation kicks off too. So, you really will have two entities trying to do two similar things with preserving the crime scene and interviewing witnesses.
Mike Sanborn: One of the first things you do in a situation like this – once the scene has been secured – is to start ballistically recovering the bullets and other evidence. When the shooter on November 11, 2011, fired 13 shots into the White House from the Ellipse, which is south of the White House, we had to secure the White House and conduct a crime scene investigation there. We actually found a bullet six months later that had skipped over the White House and had landed on the roof of a church. This is going to be a long, arduous process that’s not going to happen overnight. This is going to take weeks.
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Jill Sanborn: And the first inclination is to assume that there are others out there because …
The Cipher Brief: What about security around the Republican National Convention, which starts on Monday?
Jill Sanborn: I’ve worked numerous Republican and Democratic Conventions, and in general, those are pretty robust. So, they will have already been preparing for tons of people coming in to work those conventions to make sure the event goes off without any violence. They may add to that, given the shooting this weekend. But it’s almost standard operating procedure that when those conventions happen, it’s all hands-on deck. You have FBI, state, and local partners, everybody coming together to make sure it’s as safe as possible.
Mike Sanborn: There could also be a congressional hearing on this down the road.
The Cipher Brief: Can you offer some perspective that gives us an idea of how things work relative to the relationship between law enforcement and social media in a situation like this, which is not always a close relationship.
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Conclusion:
As we navigate through these challenging times, it’s crucial to rely on verified information from official sources rather than succumbing to misleading narratives on social media. Combining efforts from various law enforcement agencies and utilizing advanced investigative techniques are key in uncovering the motives behind such violent incidents. Let’s stay vigilant, support law enforcement efforts, and remember that unity is our strength in combating domestic terrorism threats.
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