Staff Reports
Conservative journalists and concerned Americans woke up to a bombshell when Tucker Carlson’s November 14, 2025, investigation pulled back the curtain on a deactivated YouTube footprint tied to Thomas Matthew Crooks, a discovery that rattles the official storyline and demands answers from our institutions. Carlson’s team says archived comments and account activity from 2019–2020 show a trajectory from a once-pro-Trump youth to someone steeped in violent rhetoric, and those revelations make the phrase “lone wolf” look dangerously premature.
We have to remember what was at stake on July 13, 2024: Crooks fired from a rooftop at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, wounded former President Donald Trump and others, and killed an innocent bystander before Secret Service counter-snipers neutralized the attacker. That day exposed security failures and left the nation asking how such a close call could have happened to a presidential candidate in full view of dozens of federal and local security agents.
Carlson’s digs surfaced what he and other outlets describe as numerous YouTube comments and interactions — some archived off-platform — that include violent talk and exchanges with users tied to extremist online circles, including a persona called “Willy_Tepes.” If those comments are authentic, they show a digital trail that federal authorities either missed or downplayed, and that discrepancy should alarm every American who cares about truth and safety.
The FBI has pushed back, insisting the bureau conducted a sweeping probe and ultimately concluded Crooks acted alone after reviewing devices, interviews, and online accounts — a conclusion it reiterated when it closed the case in November 2025. But the agency’s reassurances only raise fresh questions when conservative investigators and archived records appear to show a richer online footprint than the public was told about earlier. The contrast between an enormous, resource-heavy investigation and the appearance of withheld digital material looks more like obfuscation than closure to many Americans.
Independent reporting and public records also revealed encrypted messaging apps and other digital complications on Crooks’ devices, details that prompted House lawmakers to press for fuller transparency during congressional inquiries. Encrypted platforms don’t prove a conspiracy by themselves, but they do complicate the claim that this was a solitary, inexplicable act with no warning signs — and the people who risked their lives that night deserve a straight answer.
Patriots who believe in law and order should applaud the journalists and commentators who refused to let this story die quietly. Conservative media dug into archives and public evidence where others waved away inconvenient facts, and their work forced the conversation back into the daylight where voters can see it. Washington cannot be allowed to paper over potential intelligence failures with press releases; transparency isn’t partisan, it’s American.
Now is the moment for Republican leaders, Congress, and state prosecutors to demand the full unredacted record: show the public the devices, the account archives, the timelines, and the decision-making memos that led to the widely varying public statements. If federal agencies have nothing to hide, they should welcome that scrutiny; if they do, then the same system that protects our leaders must protect the truth for the people who pay for it. The safety of our candidates and the integrity of our republic depend on it.
