Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), who is a retired Green Beret and a member of the bipartisan House task force investigating the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, revealed on Wednesday that would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks had encrypted messaging accounts on platforms based in Germany, Belgium, and New Zealand.
According to Fox News, Waltz offered reporters an update on the investigation into the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump at the former president’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, during a press conference at the Trump Hotel Chicago on Wednesday.
Asked what the bipartisan task force had learned throughout the course of its investigation, specifically regarding encrypted messages found on the Trump shooter’s cellphone, Waltz said, “We still haven’t learned a lot. We haven’t learned that much about those overseas accounts. We do know that they were in, if I get this correctly, Belgium, New Zealand and Germany.”
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Waltz added, “Why does a 19-year-old kid who is a health care aide need encrypted platforms not even based in the United States, but based abroad, where most terrorist organizations know it is harder for our law enforcement to get into? That’s a question I’ve had since day one.”
During Wednesday’s press conference, Waltz also criticized the Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for not providing more information about the assassination attempt until the two agencies finish their investigations, which are not expected to be completed for months.
“They need to be releasing information as they come across it, because this wasn’t an isolated incident,” Waltz stated. “The threats are continually Iran’s threats.”
The Daily Wire reported that the Republican-led House announced the 13 members of its bipartisan task force last month. The outlet reported that the task force investigating the assassination attempt against Trump consists of seven Republican members and six Democratic members.
In addition to the House’s investigation, both the House and the Senate have held public hearings with the heads of the Secret Service and the FBI to discuss the security failures that led to the assassination attempt.
