Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) requested to examine the body of would-be presidential assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks as part of the House’s investigation into the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, only to discover that the shooter’s body is “gone” and that “the FBI cleaned up biological evidence from the crime scene,” which the congressman says “injury[ed]” the investigation.
The FBI released Crooks’ body for cremation on July 23, just ten days after the assassination attempt on Trump, and “nobody knew this” until August 5, including the Butler County coroner, law enforcement, and the Butler County sheriff, Higgins said in a Monday report.
“My effort to examine Crooks’ body on Monday, August 5, caused quite a stir and revealed a disturbing fact… the FBI released the body for cremation 10 days after [July] 13,” the congressman said. “On [July] 23, Crooks was gone.”
“Nobody knew this until Monday, August 5, including the County Coroner, law enforcement, Sheriff, etc.,” Higgins added.
“Yes, Butler County Coroner technically had legal authority over the body, but I spoke with the Coroner, and he would have never released Crooks’ body to the family for cremation or burial without specific permission from the FBI,” the congressman clarified.
Higgins also noted, “The FBI cleaned up biological evidence from the crime scene, which is unheard of.”
“Cops don’t do that, ever,” the congressman asserted in his report.
“The FBI released the crime scene after just 3 days, much to everyone’s surprise,” Higgins observed. “I interviewed several First Responders who expressed everything from surprise to dismay to suspicion regarding the fact that the FBI released the crime scene so early after J13.”
“It should be noted that the FBI was fully aware of the fact that Congress would be investigating J13,” Higgins pointed out.
“The FBI does not exist in a vacuum,” he added. “They had to know that releasing the J13 crime scene would injure the immediate observations of any following investigation.”
The congressman also noted that the coroner’s report and autopsy report are both “late.”
“As of Monday, August 5, they were a week late,” he said. “The problem with me not being able to examine the actual body is that I won’t know 100% if the coroner’s report and the autopsy report are accurate. We will actually never know.”
Higgins said that while he will eventually obtain the reports and photos from the autopsy, “I will not ever be able to say with certainty that those reports and pictures are accurate according to my own examination of the body.”
“This action by the FBI can only be described by any reasonable man as an obstruction to any following investigative effort,” the congressman asserted.
He also pointed out that on the day Crooks’ body was cremated, “both the Homeland Security Committee and the Oversight Committee had begun House Committee jurisdictional investigation into J13, and Speaker Johnson had already stated that he was forming an Official Congressional investigative body.”
“Why, then, by what measure, would the FBI release his body to the family for cremation?” Higgins asked. “This pattern of investigative scorched earth by the FBI is quite troubling.”
The congressman made his remarks in a Preliminary Investigative Report to Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), the chairman of the “Bipartisan Task Force to Investigate the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump.”
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