While no official motive has been released for the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the fact that the former president of the United States was millimeters away from dying from a gunshot wound to the head has always provided a pretty decent idea. 

On Wednesday, though, the FBI sought to broaden any possible motive, reporting that Thomas Crooks, who was killed by a counter-sniper team after opening fire, also searched for rallies involving Joe Biden. That tracks with previous testimony offered by FBI Dir. Christopher Wray.

BREAKING: The gunman who shot at Donald Trump searched for Trump and Biden events but saw Trump's July rally as a "target of opportunity," the FBI says. https://t.co/Z2JF8e3h81

— The Associated Press (@AP) August 28, 2024

The gunman in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump searched online for events of both Trump and President Joe Biden and saw the Pennsylvania campaign rally where he opened fire last month as a “target of opportunity,” a senior FBI official said Wednesday.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, who shot at Trump from a nearby roof before being killed by a Secret Service countersniper, did extensive research for an attack before the shooting and had looked at any number of events or targets, including the current and former president, said Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office.

The insinuation is clear: Crooks was not politically motivated (at least in a partisan manner) and only shot Trump because his rally represented the best opportunity to accomplish an assassination of a major figure.

Is that true? I suppose that depends on how much you trust the FBI, which has gone out of its way in the past to downplay politically motivated attacks against Republicans. Recall that the congressional baseball shooting, which nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise, was labeled a "suicide by cop" despite it being immediately known that the shooter was a Bernie Sanders supporter with a list of Republicans to kill. It wasn't until years later that the record was corrected. 

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The FBI also still insists there is no known motive for the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that took the lives of 60 people attending a country music concert. Another more recent example would be the Waukesha massacre, which has no official stated motive despite the killer being an adherent to far-left black liberation theology and having expressed a hatred for white people.

In other words, it is perfectly understandable if people see this latest report from the FBI and question it. Clearly, the government wants to put out the impression that the would-be assassination of Donald Trump was sheer chance, motivated by nothing but the opportunity existing. Color me extremely skeptical given what transpired and the FBI's history.