Did Donald Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks have three offshore bank accounts totaling $1.5 million? No, that's not true: The FBI National Press Office told Lead Stories that, as of July 30, 2024, their investigation had "not uncovered any evidence" of "overseas bank accounts." Secret Service and FBI officials had briefed members of Congress that Crooks had three foreign encrypted platforms on his cellphone, but they did not say he had bank accounts offshore.
The claim appeared in an image posted (archived here) on Facebook on July 24, 2024. The image's text graphic said:
So who opened his 3 bank accounts offshore? One in Switzerland, one in the Cayman Islands and one in Singapore totaling 1.5 millions dollars
So he is not a lone wolf!
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of the writing of this fact check:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Jul 31 15:27:45 2024 UTC)
The social media post provided no evidence to support the claim Crooks had three offshore bank accounts.
FBI
Asked about the claim in the social-media post, the FBI National Press Office responded to Lead Stories in a July 30, 2024, email. The agency said:
The investigation to date has not uncovered any evidence that the shooter had overseas bank accounts. Our investigation is continuing.
Congressional briefings
Members of the House of Representatives and Senate had been briefed previously on Capitol Hill about Crooks' online activity. A CBS News report published on July 18, 2024, said:
Secret Service and FBI officials, including [then-] Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray, provided House and Senate lawmakers separate briefings on Wednesday [July 17, 2024] to give updates about the federal investigation into the assassination attempt.
The briefers told lawmakers they are still attempting to access three foreign encrypted platforms that Crooks used on his cellphone, multiple sources told CBS News. Sources said officials told lawmakers that the encrypted sites are presenting challenges to investigators and could take time to decrypt.
At a House Judiciary Committee hearing a week later on July 24, 2024, Wray referred to the "platforms" more precisely as "encrypted messaging applications," The Record reported. They were never identified as offshore bank accounts.
Read more
More Lead Stories fact checks of claims about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, can be found here.
