Trump shooter visited the shooting range dozens of times, including on Christmas Day, amid “intense attack preparations”

According to newly obtained records, Donald Trump's potential assassin visited his shooting range dozens of times during a period of “intensive preparation” in the year before the attack – including on Christmas Day.

Documents obtained by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley from the Clairton Sportsmen's Club in Jefferson Hills, Pennsylvania, show that Thomas Crooks visited the shooting range 43 times between August 10, 2023, and his failed assassination attempt on the former president on July 13, 2024 in Butler.

According to Grassley's office, Crooks spent his time “almost exclusively” at the club's shooting range, with 80 percent of his visits spent practicing target practice.

The 20-year-old even visited the site on holidays, recording visits on Christmas, Valentine's Day and Halloween.

His last visit took place on the afternoon of July 12 – records show, one day before the assassination attempt.

A few days earlier, on July 6, Crooks had searched the Internet for the question “How far was Oswald from Kennedy?” in connection with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Two hours before the shooting, Crooks then flew a drone over a path about 600 feet from the podium where Trump would stand, officials previously announced.

Then, minutes after Trump took the stage, Crooks opened fire with an AR-15 rifle.

With eight shots, he killed one demonstrator, wounded two others and injured Trump by hitting him in the ear – before Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.

Now the new details about Crooks' shooting training reveal his “intensive preparations in the months leading up to the attempted assassination of the former president,” Grassley said.

The footage, released the same day that body camera footage was first shown, shows the moment a Butler County police officer climbed onto the roof where Crooks was stationed and came face-to-face with the gunman moments before he opened fire.

The bodycam footage also shows local police officers complaining – or not complaining – about the Secret Service’s preparations ahead of the rally.

Some of the footage shows the local officer being lifted onto the roof by another police officer before quickly falling back down.

About 40 seconds after the encounter, Crooks opened fire.

The officer later told his colleagues that Crooks had pointed the gun at him before jumping down and running to his car, where he eventually retrieved a rifle.

“Fuck that close, dude. Dude, he turned to me,” the officer who spotted Crooks says to a colleague.

When an officer asked where the shooter was, he replied: “He is standing upright.”

“Who's got an eye on him? He was right where you picked me up, brother. He was on the left side,” the officer says.

Then a voice is heard over a radio saying, “We have two civilians – taking care of them. I need an ambulance back there.”

In other footage, local officials can be heard complaining that they had told the Secret Service days earlier to station officers near the building the crooks targeted.

“I spoke to the Secret Service people and they said, 'Yeah, no problem, we'll post people here,'” says the first officer, pointing out that there were no officers on the roof.

“What the hell,” says the first officer. “Why weren't we on the roof? Why weren't we?”

The new details come as authorities – particularly the Secret Service – continue to face questions about the day’s failures.

Last month, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle called the agency's inability to protect Trump “the Secret Service's biggest operational failure in decades” – before she resigned from her post.

During a press conference last Friday, acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe also admitted that “we should have had more of a presence” in the building.

A text message exchange previously revealed that officers from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit first saw Crooks more than 100 minutes before he opened fire.