FBI Director Wray tells Congress would-be Trump assassin sought info about Kennedy assassination

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the agency's ongoing investigation of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, providing new information uncovered while other factors continue to be investigated.

Wray said Wednesday during the House hearing the would-be Trump assassin conducted a Google search on "how far away was Oswald  from Kennedy?"

The gunman who shot Trump, Thomas Crooks, fired from a building rooftop about 150 yards away from where former President Donald Trump, now the GOP presidential nominee, was on stage during a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

Lee Harvey Oswald fatally shot then-President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, from a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository as Kennedy traveled below by motorcade.

"That's a search that obviously is significant in terms of his state of mind," Wray said.

He is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on the security failures by law enforcement, including the Secret Service, that occurred during the Trump rally.

At one point during the hearing, Wray said that Crooks purchased a ladder prior to the shooting but it was not found at the site. Wray said the FBI is still looking into how Crooks was able to get on the roof. 

The FBI is leading the investigation into the incident and so far has not found the motive of Crooks, who fired eight shots from a rooftop about 150 yards from the rally – killing one and wounding three, including Trump.

Wray also told committee members there is no know evidence Crooks had accomplices.

Committee member Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., asked Wray whether or not the gunman worked alone.

"So far we have not found any evidence of accomplices or coconspirators ... foreign or domestic," Wray replied.

Wray also said the FBI has yet to find a motive in the shooting, but that Crooks clearly had a fascination with public figures and that about a week before the shooting he became "very focused" on Trump and the rally.

In addition, Wray said Crooks was not on the FBI's radar or in the agency's database before the shooting and that  investigators found about 14 guns in his family home.  

Early in the hearing, Wray said that FBI has uncovered a drone that gunman used the day of the attempted assassination and that he flew it in the vicinity of the rally site about two hours before Trump took the stage, at about 5:30 p.m.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio., pressed Wray for more information. 

"When I say area, not over the stage and that part of the area itself," Wray said. "I would say about 200 yards."

He also called the assassination attempt a "threat to democracy."

"The attempted assassination of the former president was an attack on our democracy and our democratic process and we will not and do not tolerate political violence of any kind, especially a despicable account of this magnitude," he said in his opening statement.

He also said  the FBI is working "tirelessly" to figure out the failures of the rally. 

This is the third hearing this week on the assassination attempt, with former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris testifying at the other hearings. 

Cheatle resigned Tuesday just one day after her testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee.