Social media platform Gab reveals Trump rally shooter may have operated a pro-Biden account in 2021
According to the recent testimony of the FBI director, no evidence of any social media posts or manifesto linked to the July 13 Trump rally shooter, Thomas Crooks, had been discovered by investigators so far.
That may not be entirely true, however, as the CEO of Gab asserted this week that Crooks may have previously and briefly operated a pro-Biden account on the social media platform, the Daily Mail reported.
The executive acknowledged that the suspected account, which was last used in 2021, was not confirmed as being definitively linked to the deceased shooter, and claimed that he had been informed of the possible connection by an unnamed law enforcement agency.
Crooks may have used a Gab account in 2021
In a thread of X posts on Wednesday, Gab CEO Andrew Torba wrote, "Approximately 30 minutes ago, Gab learned that Thomas Crooks, the deranged Joe Biden supporter who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump, may have had an account on our platform. We are unable to confirm that the account in question actually belonged to him."
"The account was last active on the site in 2021. As far as we are aware, the account did not use the site to send any direct messages. He posted on the site nine (9) times total," he continued. "While the account made very few posts on the site, the majority of them were in support of President Biden. A number of posts in particular expressed support for President Biden's COVID lockdowns, border policies and executive orders."
Torba proceeded to share screenshots of all of the posts made by the suspect account, and as noted, those posts that dated to the first couple of weeks of Joe Biden's presidency clearly supported the new border and immigration policies of the new president and were critical of the former president and his supporters.
Informed of possible link by unnamed "law enforcement agency"
Torba noted some additional "context" about the suspect Gab account at the end of his X thread and revealed that "the reason we know is because we received an emergency disclosure request from a law enforcement agency," and earlier observed in the thread that the platform had "saved the account data pending receipt of a search warrant."
He also shared a bit of personal news in relation to the revelation and wrote, "We are disclosing this information at significant personal and business risk. If the past is any guide, defying the D.C. consensus by publishing the first definitive evidence that the shooter was a Biden supporter -- something Democrats and their media allies have tried to cover up and deny at every turn -- has a high probability of resulting in significant political and media backlash."
"In the past, we have been the target of politically motivated inquiries from both the House Oversight Committee and the Joint Committee on the January 6th Attacks, both of which sought to interfere with our mission of protecting free speech online," he added. "The enemies of freedom have the ability to impose significant present and future legal costs and any donations we receive will help to defray those costs."
Possible evidence Crooks was "a left-wing partisan who hated" Trump
In a follow-up post on Thursday aimed at "journalists" who were asking him questions, Torba wrote, "Yesterday, in the process of responding to an emergency disclosure request from a U.S. law enforcement agency, Gab learned that a pro-Biden/Harris account on the site was believed to have belonged to Thomas Matthew Crooks, who attempted to assassinate President Trump. After backing up the account, we notified the public."
He observed that some Democrats and the media were attempting to portray Crooks as a Republican, and noted that Gab "has published the first evidence making it very apparent that Crooks was a left-wing partisan who hated President Trump’s immigration policies -- noting that the shooter fired on President Trump when he started talking about those same policies."
"This raises the possibility, for the first time, that his attempted assassination of President Trump was the latest instance of a wider pattern of left-wing domestic terrorism that has plagued our country since the summer of 2020," Torba added. "Gab.com will continue to fight for the free speech rights of all Americans. Free speech allows truths like this to surface while censorship seeks to hide the facts in darkness. May God bless our great nation."
FBI director testified that no social media accounts had been found yet
Interestingly enough, while Torba was making his initial posts about the suspected Gab account of the Trump rally shooter, FBI Director Chris Wray was testifying under oath to a congressional committee that his investigators had uncovered no evidence thus far of any social media accounts, online messages, or manifesto explaining Crooks' beliefs and motivations, according to CBS News.
"We do not yet have a clear picture of his motive," Wray told lawmakers, but did acknowledge that the FBI was engaged in a "legal process" to gain access to possible online accounts and said that while nothing of note had been found yet, "We're digging in hard because this is one of the central questions for us."