Zero Hedge

Tucker Exposes Trump Would-Be Assassin Thomas Crooks' Social Media History, The FBI Coverup, And More Strangeness

Tucker Exposes Trump Would-Be Assassin Thomas Crooks' Social Media History, The FBI Coverup, And More Strangeness

Tucker Carlson has just released a deep dive into Donald Trump's attempted assassin, Thomas Crooks - who both the Biden and the Trump FBI have been very quiet about since the July 13, 2024 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

In late September, Carlson's team received an anonymous tip from someone who said they had gained access to some of Crooks' online accounts, which he found using 'tools commonly used by private investigators' after obtaining Crooks' phone number and gmail address from public documents. He then traced that to two encrypted foreign email accounts (bcook[at]mailfence.com and americangamer[at]gmx.com). He also had a snapchat account, a Venmo, Zelle and PayPal account among several others. 

"It turns out that Crooks was hardly an online ghost," Carlson reports. "And yet, federal investigators lied and told us there was no trace of him online."

The source was able to obtain all materials from Crooks' deactivated YouTube account - which includes his search history, watch history, and 737 public comments. 

When Carlson's team asked the FBI why they hadn't shared this information with the public, the agency replied by asking if they could verify the authenticity of the shooter's account. 

What did Crooks say?

The comments by Crooks were posted between 2019 and 2020, when he was between 15 and 17-years-old. "They show two things," Carlson explains. "First, that Thomas Crooks was not some secretive lone wolf who never warned anyone that he was planning on violence. Just the opposite. Years before he showed up in Butler, Crooks was leaving a detailed digital trail of violent threats - including calls for assassinations and political violence. Second - they show a man who started out as a radical Trump supporter, whose views on the President transformed - changed completely, during Covid. The FBI lied about that fact, and that Crooks was a right-winger."

Pro-Trump: 

On July 19, 2019 Crooks writes: "Ilhan Omar and others are invaders and should honestly be killed and their dead bodies sent back."

On July 20, 2018, Crooks writes: "If youre saying trump is a bad president you arent a patriot as trump is the literal definition of Patriotism"

Seven hours after that comment, Crooks writes: "I hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman who dont deserve anything this countru [sic] has given them"

Later that evening he wrote: "Everyone of the Trump hat-ing democrats deserve to have their heads chopped of and put on steaks for the world to see what happens when you fuck with America"

These types of comments continued for months, "and became increasingly violent." 

"If any of the democratic candidates win. They wont be in there for long. Because unlike the dems we have guns and lots of them"

He also quoted Mao - writing "The only real political power comes from the barrel of a gun." 

The Change:

In early 2020 as the pandemic shifted into the headlines, crooks "radically" changed - writing of "trumps stupidity." 

He then began to mock the idea of the deep state - writing that "The deep state is simply made up of anybody who dis-agrees with the right wing. Conversation over." 

In Feb. 2020, Crooks called out Trump supporters as "brainwashed," and a "cult."

Later that day, Crooks called Trump a racist. 

And in April 2020 when the COVID panic was in full swing, Crooks became pro-lockdown, writing "It seems that you people don't understand that sometimes Public safety comes before your Personnel rights." 

He then wrote: "...going to a chinese new years party in america isn't putting you at risk for corona virus because believe it or not viruses don't spread through race like Tucker Carlson probably told you." 

In May of 2020, Crooks called Republican concerns over voter fraud "ignorant." 

He then wrote a comment that sounded like a "digital manifesto," Carlson reports. 

"they only way to fight the gov is with terror-ism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building a set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to asasinate them. Any sort of head fight is suicide and even ambush/surprise attacks likely aren't going to end well."

The Agitator

Then - a YouTube user @Willy_Tepes began seemingly encouraging Crooks... writing "If a gun and a badge is all that is needed, then authority obviously comes from the barrel of a gun. We have more guns than they do ;)" 

"We have nothing to lose and everything to win,.....and the alternative, a global police state, is unacceptable!" Tepes continues in another comment. 

Carlson asks who Tepas could be - noting that the FBI hasn't made any mention of him, but that someone had screenshotted his YouTube page despite the fact that he had very few followers. 

That said, the usernme was used on a foreign Antifa website linked to the Nordic Resistance Movement, which was designated a terrorist organization by the US State Dept. 

Crooks' online comments mysteriously disappear after his interactions with Tepas, and Carlson notes that Crooks was 'ripe for recruitment' by someone. However his search history was still available:

From early 2019 to mid-2020, "Crooks searched for Trump more than 700 times online," and searched for "Jack Ruby" , "Best places for mass shooting." , and how to make various explosives and devices for mass killings. He also searched for "Sniper in Dallas shooting" , "American Nazi Party" , "German National Anthem 1933-1945," and "Hitler's speeches with subtitles." 

FBI Coverup? 

"Why is the FBI keeping Crooks' views a secret?" asks Carlson, adding "Why are they ignoring Congressional subpoenas to divulge information?"

"So here you have a volatile, troubled, possibly mentally ill young man with a long record of espousing violence in public," Carlson continues. "The FBI clearly knew he existed. And then you have at the very end of his years commenting in public, espousing violence, an exchange with a mysterious figure affiliated with a group that we know is being monitored by the US State Department." 

Turns out that around the same time as Thomas Crooks was making assertions and posting overt threats of violent against public figures on YouTube, the FBI was issuing contracts to private sector tech surveillance firms to harness the power of mass data collection tools to monitor social media for people just like Thomas Crooks," Tucker continues. "It's hard to imagine that Thomas Crooks is making these posts publicly and in his own name, and had not been identified and looked at closely by federal law enforcement. In fact, it's impossible to imagine." 

"We know that the FBI had access to these YouTube comments."

Yet, "they used a selective read of those comments to lie about what Thomas Crooks was saying."

Two and a half weeks after the attack, a 'source familiar with the investigation' told CNN that "Federal investigators are looking into a YouTube account possibly connected to Crooks in which the user espoused political violence as well as antisemitic and anti-immigration themes."

Carlson says that the FBI "knew full well" that it was Crooks' account. "There was never any question." 

Biden's FBI Deputy Director lied the same day as the CNN report in Congressional testimony, while the NY Post reported in Feb. 2025 that the "FBI has obstructed efforts to solve the mystery of why Thomas Matthew Crooks, who left no manifesto, did what he did."

Other notable facts: 

  • Crooks' body was cremated on orders from the FBI the same day the House Homeland Security and Oversight Committee began their investigation.

"Can't do a new tox(icology) screen, because the body doesn't exist," Carlson points out. 

  • Photos from the day after the shooting "show an FBI agent hosing down the site where Crooks died," which high-level sources told Carlson was 'very strange,' as the FBI 'usually hires out crime scene cleanup to third-party contractors - but in this case they did it themselves." 

  • Biden FBI officials accessed Crooks' phone using software from an Israeli firm, Cellebrite, and accessed his phone, computer and his encrypted messaging apps in Belgium, New Zealand and Germany - "yet none of the online activity the FBI discovered was referred to in any way in the final Congressional report." 

Carlson then notes FBI Director Kash Patel and Assistant Director Dan Bongino's awkward and evasive answers when asked whether we'll find out more...

More Weirdness

Carlson also points out that Crooks had an unbelievably 'lucky day' the day of the shooting, which the FBI is stonewalling the public over. 

For example: 

  • Within days of the shooting, the FBI had 'collected all the relevant surveillance footage,' which includes footage from local businesses, state police,  and "critically, the gun range where Thomas Crooks trained." Did he train alone? We don't know, because to this day the FBI refuses to release the footage.
  • Some of Crooks' comments were erased from the internet archive after the shooting. 
  • On the day of the attack, Crooks conducted surveillance at Butler - flying a drone over the rally site for 11 minutes - right as the Secret Service's anti-drone system was mysteriously down. 

  • Police at Butler saw Crooks with a rangefinder and a backpack, identified him as a suspicious person, but 'quickly lost track' of him. 
  • Crooks climbed onto the only building in the area that did not have a video surveillance system, and was 'remarkably' outside the Secret Service's security perimeter. 
  • Two local cops saw crooks but did not report it, while a 3rd police officer who was supposed to be covering the building 'left early.'

Watch the entire thing below:

*  *  * Please consider supporting ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge Hat

ZeroHedge Multitool

Weird shirt

 

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 08:20

Germany's "Council Of Economic Experts" Calls For Higher Inheritance Taxes, And Bows To The State

Germany's "Council Of Economic Experts" Calls For Higher Inheritance Taxes, And Bows To The State

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

In its latest annual report, Germany’s Council of Economic Experts — once regarded as a market-oriented corrective to government excess — has presented what can only be described as a courtesy opinion. Rather than challenging the political status quo, the five “wise men” largely echo Berlin’s own agenda: more state intervention, higher taxes, and tighter regulation.

On Wednesday, the council presented its annual report at the federal press conference. For the first time, Chancellor Friedrich Merz received the economists’ assessment in person. What they handed him, however, reads less like independent advice and more like a compilation of familiar political slogans.

At the top of the list stands — yet again — the call for “cutting bureaucracy,” a mantra repeated endlessly but never realized. Meanwhile, the council ignores the core problem: the German economy is suffocating under its own regulatory machinery. In the past three years alone, businesses have had to hire roughly 325,000 additional staff just to deal with the avalanche of new rules — a massive diversion of resources that adds nothing to productivity.

Bureaucratic Strangulation, Military Keynesianism

Among the council’s key recommendations is “more joint procurement and innovation” in the defense sector — another item perfectly aligned with government priorities. Together with its uncritical support for climate policy, the report reveals how deeply the economists have internalized state narratives.

Instead of questioning the economic burden of the artificial “green industry,” which drags down productivity across all sectors, the council now embraces the logic of a war economy as the next growth engine. The parallels are disturbing. Rather than recalibrating Germany’s economic compass, the report doubles down on the same failed assumptions: more state, more coordination, less individual responsibility.

Phantom Growth, Real Debt

When it comes to growth, the council again mirrors the government’s projections. Both the experts and the Economics Ministry expect a meager 0.2% GDP growth for 2025. That means the massive, debt-financed stimulus packages — which will push public debt up sharply in the coming years — have already fizzled out.

With the state share at roughly 50% of GDP and net new borrowing around 4.2% (including special funds and off-balance items), the implication is devastating: the private economy has contracted by more than 4%.
This is a resounding failure of the government’s Keynesian strategy — yet the economists respond not with structural criticism but with timid nods to bureaucracy reform, while otherwise parroting eco-socialist talking points.

Inheritance Tax: The New Redistribution Tool

The council’s most controversial proposal concerns inheritance taxation. Once a bastion of market-oriented reasoning, the body now advocates raising taxes on inherited business assets, denouncing the current exemptions as “socially unjust.” The language could have been lifted straight from the Green Party’s manifesto.

Specifically, the report suggests limiting the tax exemption for business assets to €26 million, and either abolishing or sharply restricting relief for larger inheritances. Payment deferrals would be introduced to avoid liquidity crises during succession. 

Behind the talk of “asset mobility,” however, lies a distinctly socialist vision — one aimed at broader redistribution and fiscal relief for the state.

Meanwhile, Germany’s real debt (including special funds and hidden borrowing) will rise by over 5% next year. Yet the council sees no problem, as long as Berlin remains in the good company of the EU’s “debt club.”

The State as Sacred Cow

Any notion of shrinking government or ending the interventionist spiral has vanished. The council now fully embraces the political orthodoxy. In doing so, it breaks decisively with the principles of private property and free enterprise, aligning itself intellectually with Marcel Fratzscher’s DIW — a think tank long known for its statist bias.

The report even promotes a state-guided “retirement savings fund” that would channel private investment toward politically defined objectives — above all, climate policy. Once again, the state seeks to steer private capital allocation while dressing it up as “financial inclusion.”

The underlying message is unmistakable: the state is no longer the problem, but the solution.
Even by Berlin standards, this marks a profound paradigm shift.

The Fall of the Economic Council

The council’s ideological transformation — especially in its endorsement of higher inheritance taxes — is a turning point. It confirms what many suspected: Berlin’s bureaucracy has wrapped itself in a belt of compliant advisors, ensuring that no fundamental market-liberal critique can pierce its walls.

Now, even family-owned businesses are to be fed into the meat grinder of redistribution. This represents the low point of a once-proud institution that has steadily drifted away from the foundations of economic freedom.
The principle of private property, generational continuity, and the right to dispose freely of one’s already-taxed assets — all this has been subordinated to the new orthodoxy of “social justice.”

If economists truly value civilizational progress, these principles should be their starting point, not their target.
It is a bitter moment for German academia — assuming one can still call it that.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 08:10

Pages