FBI, in private meeting with Trump, revealed new details about his potential assassin: sources

In a private meeting with Donald Trump last week, FBI agents and other law enforcement officials offered the former president new, previously undisclosed details about the 20-year-old Pennsylvania man who nearly assassinated Trump at a rally last month, sources familiar with the meeting told ABC News.

For more than 90 minutes on Aug. 1, law enforcement officials described shooter Thomas Crooks as a remarkably intelligent man who scored more than 1,500 on his college prep SAT exam but who also may have struggled for years with an undiagnosed disorder, said the sources, who were briefed on the meeting.

Trump was told that, through interviews with Crooks’ family and others who knew him, investigators learned that throughout high school, Crooks regularly rocked back and forth while standing at the bus stop — but that Crooks never received any type of formal diagnosis for it, the sources said.

Sources said law enforcement officials also told Trump they were still unable to say exactly what motivated Crooks to target Trump at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In the days and weeks leading up to the attack, Crooks researched Democratic and Republican politicians online, and it’s possible he chose to target Trump simply because he was the next big name coming to Pennsylvania, Trump was told, sources said.

Led by a senior agent from the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, last week’s meeting was supposed to be what the FBI had previously described as a “standard victim interview” of Trump, but much of it ended up being a briefing on the FBI’s investigation, with Trump asking law enforcement officials more questions than they asked him, the sources said.

Beyond questions about Crooks and how he managed to get onto the roof of a nearby building with an AR-15-style rifle, Trump also wanted to know whether authorities had found a foreign connection to the attack.

FBI agents told Trump they were able to access three foreign email accounts used by Crooks because his passwords were stored on his computer, but they found no indication that anyone else was involved in the attack, the sources said.

The information gleaned from the foreign email accounts largely concerned weapons and ammunition purchases, offering little insight into what prompted Crooks to launch his attack, Trump was told, according to sources.

At a press conference Thursday, Trump confirmed that he had spoken with the FBI about Crooks, but he did not elaborate on the discussion, saying only that the FBI had “done a very good job.”

The FBI had previously revealed that Crooks had virtually no friends and that his social circle was limited to his immediate family. To illustrate Crooks’ high level of intelligence, law enforcement officials told Trump that Crooks could name every U.S. president from George Washington to the present, sources said.

FBI agents also monitored Crooks’ movements on the day of the attack, sources said, with agents telling Trump that — even though the shooter had paid his father $500 to buy the rifle months earlier — Crooks still needed to get the rifle from his father before traveling to the rally site.

The FBI did not suggest that the father’s apparent sale of the gun was in any way illegal.

When Trump questioned law enforcement officials about allegations that Crooks had been spotted on the roof of the neighboring building well before he first opened fire, and other allegations that the Secret Service sniper who ultimately killed Crooks waited 10 minutes to take his fatal action, law enforcement officials made clear those claims were not accurate, the sources said.

Law enforcement officials told Trump that while law enforcement had been notified that there was a suspicious person nearby, the first time law enforcement saw someone on the roof of the building was about three minutes before Crooks opened fire — and the first time law enforcement saw that the person on the roof had a gun was about 30 seconds before Crooks opened fire, the sources said.

At that point, a local law enforcement officer had begun climbing onto the roof of the building when he came across Crooks, who pointed his rifle at the officer, causing the officer to fall to the ground and injure his ankle. The local officer then tried to alert other authorities, Trump was told, according to sources.

Much of the incident was captured on body cameras released Thursday by the Butler Township Police Department. The videos show officers scrambling through the building as they tried to find a way to access the roof, and the moment one officer was lifted onto the roof, only to fall.

“Damn, that’s so close, man!” the officer can be heard telling the other officers after he hit the ground. “Dude, he turned around towards me. He’s right in front!”

When a Secret Service sniper heard the gunshots seconds later, it took him no more than five seconds to locate the shooter on the roof and take him out with a single shot, law enforcement officials told Trump, according to sources.

In videos released Thursday by Butler Township police, one officer can be heard saying minutes after the shooting that he was “angry” that he and his colleagues “just couldn’t find him” before the gunshots rang out.

During Trump’s meeting with FBI agents last week, the former president praised the Secret Service sniper, saying he “did an incredible job” and “was an incredible shot,” sources said.

A spokesperson for the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office declined to comment to ABC News. A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ABC News’ Jack Date contributed to this report.