‘We Do Not Yet Have A Clear Picture Of His Motive’: FBI's Wray Tells Zoe Lofgren About Trump Shooter

2 months ago

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray about the motives behind the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump and the shooter’s access to a firearm.

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Transcript

00:00I recognize the gentlelady from California for five minutes.

00:02Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Director Wray, for being here with us today.

00:07Before I ask anything, let me just echo the comments made by others, especially the

00:13ranking member, decrying the state of political violence in this country. It's completely

00:19unacceptable. We have a democratic system that allows for us to disagree, but not to take those

00:27disagreements to violence. That's what we have elections for. And I want to also thank you and

00:34all of the FBI for the work that you do and, frankly, the abuse, unwarranted abuse and

00:40criticism that have been directed to you by conspiracy theorists and others doesn't make

00:46your hard job any easier. And I want you to know that many of us notice that and appreciate the

00:52work that you and your team are doing. Let me just ask a couple of quick questions. First,

00:59many of us are interested in the motives of the shooter here. When it's an assault

01:08on a political figure, you immediately assume there's a political motive, and that may be the

01:14case here. We don't know yet. But I was interested in what you're seeing on his phone.

01:22The press has reported that he had pictures, not only of Mr. Trump, but of Mr. Biden and various

01:28other members, political figures. Can you discern? Was there, you know, an element of, you know,

01:35mainly Republicans, maybe Democrats? Was it all over the board? Can you enlighten us about that?

01:41Well, this is a place where it's particularly important for me to reiterate the caveat that

01:46I've included before, because in this instance, in particular, we have a lot of legal process out

01:52for additional accounts and things like that, that the shooter is associated with. So we're

01:59hoping to learn more, and we're still exploiting a number of the digital devices. I think it's

02:05fair to say that we do not yet have a clear picture of his motive. And I think it's important

02:11for me to explain, because I understand, of course, why everybody wants to know the answers

02:15to those questions. Often in an investigation, from interviewing people that the subject was

02:23in close contact with, looking at the individual's subject social media accounts, messages,

02:30often things, physical evidence in the person's residence, you might see a manifesto,

02:34things like that. We're not seeing that yet. But we are digging in hard, because this is one of

02:40the central questions for us. What I can say is that the shooter appears to have

02:49done a lot of searches of public figures in general. But so far, we're seeing kind of news

02:54articles and things like that. And so the images that have been reported about really what we're

02:58talking about there are when you do a news search of an article, the image appears in the cache,

03:05as opposed to like a search for that specific individual. But again, I really want to be

03:11clear that that's a place that we're doing a lot of work right now, and some more to come on that.

03:16Well, I thank you for that clarification. We're interested also in the role of access to weapons

03:24when it comes to this terrible crime. The shooter used a semi-automatic rifle, really a weapon of war

03:31that sadly has also been used in mass shootings around the country, including in my own district.

03:37It seems to me that the assault weapons ban that was once in place has to be a part

03:43of the national answer to curbing the epidemic of gun violence in America. I wonder if you could,

03:50with your help, Director Wray, understand a few aspects of the investigation. It's my

03:55understanding that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, ATF,

04:01was quickly able to trace the gun, the gun's purchaser, using records from an out-of-business

04:08gun store, records that the government has required to correct. Some of my colleagues on

04:14the other side of the aisle have suggested that collection should stop. There have been efforts

04:19to digitize it, which have been resisted. Can you tell us about how the origin of this

04:25gun purchase was discovered and the technology used?

04:33Well, I guess what I can say is we located a number of firearms associated with the shooter

04:42and his family. I think it was a total of, I think, 14 in the house. The weapon that he used

04:53for the attempted assassination was an AR-style rifle that was purchased legally,

05:01that he, as my understanding, acquired, I think bought, actually, from his father,

05:08who was the one who originally bought it, again, legally.

05:12Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired, so I yield.

‘We Do Not Yet Have A Clear Picture Of His Motive’: FBI's Wray Tells Zoe Lofgren About Trump Shooter

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