GOP Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana has released a report that says Thomas Matthew Crooks—the shooter in the failed assassination attempt against Donald Trump last month, who was fatally shot on the scene—was cremated less than two weeks after the shooting.
According to the report, Higgins asked to be able to see the shooter’s body but was told that it was “gone.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reportedly allowed the shooter’s body to be cremated only 10 days after the July 13 attack. The representative also noted that “nobody knew” this key detail “until Monday, August 5.” This included local law enforcement and the county coroner.
The coroner in Butler County was the “legal authority” to determine what happened to the body. Three days after the shooting, the FBI closed the crime scene and “cleaned up” the scene of all “biological evidence.” Higgins explained that the county coroner told him he “would have never” allowed the body to be given back to Crooks’ family to be cremated or buried unless he had “specific permission from the FBI.”
Additionally, Higgins said that the report and autopsy from the coroner was “late,” noting that he would not be able to verify if the report was “accurate” since he is now no longer able to “examine the actual body.” He said, quite bluntly, that he will never “actually” know the truth without the opportunity to verify, first-hand, that the “reports and pictures” are correct.
Higgins is part of the task force launched by the House of Representatives to investigate the assassination attempt. His preliminary report was the result of a visit he made to Butler earlier this month, for a duration of three days. He later said in a statement that “every question will be answered,” each “theory explored,” and all “doubt[s] erased.”
He emphasized that American citizens “deserve the full truth” regarding the failed assassination attempt against the former president.
Initial hearings in the aftermath of the shooting revealed that there was a tremendous lack of communication between federal and local law enforcement, although the precise reason behind the attack and all the details remain uncertain.
