The CEO of Gab, a social media site and Twitter alternative, is challenging the FBI’s claims that would-be Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks posted “antisemitic” and “anti-immigration” views on the platform. Gab CEO Andrew Torba reports that, in fact, Crooks shared pro-immigration and anti-Trump content on the site if, in fact, the accounts suspected by the FBI to belong to Crooks are really his.
On Tuesday, Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate testified before Congress with acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe. During the hearing, Abbate informed Senators that the FBI has identified two separate social media accounts that they believe may belong to Crooks. The FBI reported that one account shared “antisemitic” content, while a second Gab account presented “differing points of view.”
“While the investigative team is still working to verify this account to determine if it did, in fact, belong to the shooter, we believe it important to share and note it today, particularly given the general absence of other information to date from social media and other sources of information that reflect on the shooter’s potential motive and mindset,” Abbate told the Senate panel. Torba, who had previously reported that the FBI alerted Gab about an account possibly owned by Crooks and requested data preservation, responded to Abbate’s testimony in a post on X on Tuesday.
“This is not consistent with Gab’s understanding of the shooter’s motives based on an Emergency Disclosure Request (‘EDR’) we received from the FBI last week for the Gab account ‘EpicMicrowave’ which, based on the content of that EDR, the FBI appeared to think belonged to Thomas Crooks,” Torba wrote in response to Abbate’s testimony. Torba then posted a portion of the FBI’s request, with some sections left redacted out of respect for the sensitivity of the investigation.
In one post from the account believed to be Crooks’s, he seemed to defend President Biden’s immigration policies in reply to a pro-Trump poster. “First of all Biden executive orders don’t incentivize human trafficking as human traffickers aren’t interested in citizenships, likewise the majority of illegal immigrants are not criminals and in fact some studies (such as the one linked below) show lower rates of crime committed by these individuals,” reads one post from the account, then linking to a study from PNAS.
In a different post, the account purportedly run by Crooks recommended that COVID-19 lockdowns were an effective measure. “Thats funny because the first order mandates a reuniting of any families separated at the border, the 2nd and 3rd orders a review of trumps immigration policies and other previous policies. However his order doesn’t actually open borders or reduce the authority of border patrol, or anything that would substantially reduce BP effectiveness,” reads another post in defense of President Biden’s decision to reverse nearly all of Trump’s border policies.
“The story is this: the account for which data was requested was, UNEQUIVOCALLY, pro-Biden and in particular pro-Biden’s immigration policy,” Torba wrote on X. “To the best of Gab’s knowledge, as of 2021, Crooks was a pro-lockdown, pro-immigration, left-wing Joe Biden supporter.”
The bombshell post caught the attention of X owner Elon Musk, who said then accused the FBI deputy director of committing perjury if the account does indeed belong to Crooks. “It sure looks like the FBI leadership engaged in perjury,” Musk wrote in an X post.
So far, the FBI has reported that it has been unable to determine Crooks’s motive for attempting to kill the former president. Although Crooks was registered as a Republican voter, he made a donation to the progressive fundraising group ActBlue on President Biden’s inauguration day. Apart from the suspected Gab account, the deceased gunman had a minimal social media presence. He did have an account on Discord, a messaging app popular with gamers, but it has since been deleted by the platform.
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.