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Thoughts on Thomas Crooks and the Butler Shooting (After the new Tucker Carlson-Sean Davis Interview) - Is "Professor Raoul X" a government subcontractor?
Matt Bracken Substack ^ | 18 Jan, 2025 | Matt Bracken

Posted on 01/21/2025 7:12:16 AM PST by MtnClimber

I highly recommend that you take the time to listen to the Tucker Carlson interview with Sean Davis, six months after the near-assassination of Donald Trump.

The entire hour and a half is well worth your time, but at least watch the first 15 minutes. Half a year after Butler, there is still a thick blanket of secrecy surrounding Thomas Matthew Crooks. Who was he? What was his motivation? Was he a lone wolf, part of a group, or did he have help? Davis breaks this question into four options:

Option 1: Butler was a “total SNAFU.” An amazing combination of Secret Service incompetence, and an incredible series of oversights, accidents and coincidences allowed Crooks to access the roof unseen and fire eight shots at candidate Trump.

Option 2: “Strategic Incompetence.” The “soup sandwich” Secret Service, under the Mayorkas DHS, deliberately made Trump vulnerable by starving his protection detail of assets and competent agents, on the off chance that some random shooter might take advantage of the weakened security and solve the deep state’s problem for them. (Please note that Strategic Incompetence can also describe California firefighting, our open southern border, and many other areas of deliberate government inattention.)

Option 3: All of #2, (Strategic Incompetence), but Thomas Crooks also had a guide to nudge him into action and help him along the way. Somebody who was looking for “super disturbed impressionable young men to poke with a stick.”

Option 4: The government just plain tried to murder Trump in Butler, and failed.

Sean Davis rules out 1 and 4, and believes that the answer lies between 2 and 3. Strategic Incompetence plus “guides” (my term) to nudge likely assassins into action. I agree with Davis, but I lean further than he does into Option 3. The government will not conduct an assassination on U.S. territory directly. It’s much too politically risky. Instead they will wink and nod toward their countless murky gray-area assets in the “former” and “contract” areas of government service. Nothing of a criminal nature is ever written down, or transmitted electronically. All such communications are made face to face, and couched in deniable terms, moving down the contact ladder into the black-ops underworld.

So how do I believe Crooks was initially discovered and brought to the point of climbing onto the roof in Butler PA with an AR-15? Start with the Blackrock advertisement. I don’t believe it’s just another amazing coincidence that Crooks was one of the high school students featured in their ad before he took up the new hobbies of bomb making and political assassination.

A television production team would have spent at least a week at a school to create that ad. They are going to interview dozens of students to select the ones to include. Somebody in the production team spent time speaking with Thomas Crooks before choosing him for one of the few closeup shots. It’s standard practice in the intel world for “talent spotters” to be on the lookout for useful contacts, potential agents, or even screwball patsies. These names are passed along to their intel world contacts. I think this is where Crooks came to the attention, eventually, of bad actors who over a period of months steered him to Butler.

The next item that most casual observers likely glossed over was Crooks’ membership in the Clairton Sportsman’s Club. This is not some generic small- or medium-size “square range” under the close observation and tight control of range masters. The bad actors studying Crooks would have known of his membership at this large, rural shooting club, and it would have been simple to arrange a “chance meeting,” or, in the vernacular, a “bump” between Crooks and his future guide. From their website:

The Clairton Sportsmen's Club occupies 180 acres of picturesque woodland in the southern hills of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The club, situated in the boroughs of West Mifflin and Jefferson Hills within Allegheny County, boasts a membership exceeding 2000 individuals. Facilities include: Indoor and outdoor archery ranges, Rifle range to 200 yards, CMP competition rifle ranges offer target carriers up to 300 yards, 6 action piston bays, 3 pistol ranges, 2 dog training areas, 3 lighted skeet fields, Wobble trap, 10 lighted trap fields.

From my previous Substack column:

Note the many widely spread out shooting venues, the roofed shooting positions, all surrounded and separated by woods. If you zoom in on Google satellite view, you will see many picnic tables and other locations for private conversations, where laying out gear would be totally unremarkable. The shooting club would provide ample “cover for action” in the spook vernacular. This club would be an ideal place for Crooks to be guided and trained in the physical in-real-life dark arts, not merely the virtual ones to be found on the internet by his inquisitive mind.

My working hypothesis is that a "talent spotter" met Crooks during the Blackrock commercial filming, and then a "Professor Raoul X" was guided to him. It would be child's play for a "sympathetic older gentlemen" to frequently meet Crooks at the club, not only for firearms practice, but for clandestine ops tradecraft education in general. These would include covert communications, manufacturing explosives, remote control detonation, flying drones etc. Untold hours over weeks and months could be spent in private at any of the numerous picnic tables or covered shooting areas going over Crooks’ operational gear, practicing with tactical radios, drones, etc.

It’s notable that Crooks bought dozens of firearm-related and other operational gear over the internet using false names, concealed by VPNs, etc. Did he have help in learning this real-world operational security? It seems likely to me.

This sympathetic “friend” would also stoke Crooks' hatred for Donald Trump, and finally could give him tips about the Butler PA rally site. (All while the USSS experienced a bizarre series of "coincidental" security lapses.) But Crooks was killed by a counter-sniper—after being permitted to get off eight shots, missing Trump’s head by a whisker—so we will never find out about a possible deep state handler from his own mouth. It was shut permanently.

According to Sean Davis in the interview, Crooks even stopped by the shooting club on the day of the assassination attempt. For a final meeting with his guide? Or a chance to pick up previously cached items, such as his IEDs? It can’t be ruled out that Crooks planned to escape, using the IEDs as diversions....SNIP


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: banglist; butler; crooks; deepstate; matthewbracken; maxwellyearick; professorraoulx; routh; thomasmatthewcrooks; trump; tucker
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To: Gaffer

Real question is how many did they groom that are still out there


21 posted on 01/21/2025 7:51:06 AM PST by PMAS (Vote with your wallets, there are 80 million of us - No China made, No Amazon)
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To: Chickensoup

What struck me from the interview:

Crook had a remote detonator to detonate the explosives in his vehicle

So he planned to make a melee after the assassination.

Most likely part of a getaway plan

The detonators were turned off at the car.

Someone turned them off.

They didn’t want him to live.

His handlers/manipulators were on site at Butler at the assassinations attempt.

><

Wow!


22 posted on 01/21/2025 7:51:30 AM PST by The_Media_never_lie ( @whoisourPresident)
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To: MtnClimber

I believe that there is almost irrefutable proof of two shooters based on the trajectory of shots and the actions/testimony of Hercules sniper team (they were being fired upon from the trees.)
https://x.com/I_Am_JohnCullen


23 posted on 01/21/2025 7:51:47 AM PST by Swirl
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To: Chewbarkah

1. Government SOP is to hide information from the public.

><

Exactly. We will never learn the whole truth about the Las Vegas shooter.


24 posted on 01/21/2025 7:52:56 AM PST by The_Media_never_lie ( @whoisourPresident)
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To: The_Media_never_lie

When the cops climbed up on the roof at Butler and were walking around, one of them inquires about the status of “the guy in the van” and “is he going to make it “ It was on the body cam footage of one of the cops.

WTH is that all about ?


25 posted on 01/21/2025 7:54:54 AM PST by OldHarbor
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To: MtnClimber

I would think that continuing (or starting) an investigation about how this all went down would be a fairly high priority.


26 posted on 01/21/2025 7:57:59 AM PST by Jim Noble (Assez de mensonges et de phrases)
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To: MtnClimber

Perfect plan, nearly executed.

Shooter has perfect kill shot on intended target, snipers have perfect kill shot on shooter.

History FOREVER changed in a matter of seconds.

But the Hand of God intervened.


27 posted on 01/21/2025 7:58:06 AM PST by Biblebelter
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To: Highest Authority

Yeah, it is fairly clear the FIB and CIA consider themselves independent of the government.


28 posted on 01/21/2025 8:04:06 AM PST by doorgunner69 (Your oath of enlistment has no expiration date)
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To: doorgunner69; Biblebelter

Time is coming that
All that is Hiden Shall be Revealed!


29 posted on 01/21/2025 8:09:43 AM PST by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
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To: Chickensoup

Interesting information.


30 posted on 01/21/2025 8:10:20 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: Biblebelter

AntiSnipper was setup with
.300 WinMag-——
Talk about HunterKiller Rig!


31 posted on 01/21/2025 8:13:28 AM PST by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
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To: MtnClimber; 4everontheRight; 4Liberty; 5thGenTexan; 45semi; 101stAirborneVet; 300winmag; ...
For those who may be interested : Matt Bracken Ping

This is an introduction to Matt Bracken's substack titled : "Thoughts on THomas Crooks and the Butler Shooting
(After the Tucker Carlson-Sean Davis Interview)"
in regards to the almost fatal shooting of Presidential candidate Trump in Butler Penna.

32 posted on 01/21/2025 8:13:38 AM PST by Tilted Irish Kilt
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To: MtnClimber

Options 2 and 3 are NOT mutually exclusive with Option 4.

IMHO, the answer is that the government just plain tried to kill President Trump by means of Options 2 and 3, and failed.


33 posted on 01/21/2025 8:38:26 AM PST by enumerated (81 million votes my ass)
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To: MtnClimber

The Obvious:
1. Government SOP is to hide information from the public.
2. Government takes a long time to sort things out, for a variety of reasons, some of them legitimate. But is the overall slow-walking necessary, or part of managing public perceptions and emotions?
3. Government secrecy and manipulation of public perceptions and emotions stimulates conspiracy theories and distrust.

The Question:
Who benefits from the public turmoil, confusion, and uncertainty caused by all the above, versus giving the public timely, accurate information? (I’m talking politically, not about the media opportunists making money off discussing controversies and mysteries.)


34 posted on 01/21/2025 8:39:43 AM PST by Chewbarkah
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To: Jim Noble
I would think that continuing (or starting) an investigation about how this all went down would be a fairly high priority.

Yes. But you have to get an investigator that will not turn the effort into a coverup. That will take careful selection after Bondi/Patel are confirmed. Otherwise a coverup is guaranteed with the leftists currently in place.

35 posted on 01/21/2025 8:40:29 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: Biblebelter

And Trump acknowledges it!


36 posted on 01/21/2025 8:45:58 AM PST by milagro (There is no peace in appeasement! Thereon)
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To: PMAS

The location is key for a plot to work. Roads, buildings, fences, and other structures must be situated such that movements of the assassin are concealed while allowing the assassin to be in close enough range to get off a kill shot. Unless the assassin is suicidal, the assassin will want a location and set up that gives him/her a reasonable chance of escaping without being shot or captured.

A key question then is — Who specifically selected the fairground at Butler for the site of the Pennsylvania rally? Examine the players involved in the selection of the site, and placement of the stage, and you will have a path for discovering other conspirators and participants.


37 posted on 01/21/2025 8:49:10 AM PST by Soul of the South (The past is gone and cannot be changed. Tomorrow can be a better day if we work on it.)
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To: Organic Panic

Yeah either #1 or #4

They problem with #4 is that the Democrats know that would get Vance as President.Vance appears To me to be more focused, a be tree speaker, generally a better campaigner than Trump.

So I’m going with #1


38 posted on 01/21/2025 8:50:09 AM PST by Fai Mao (The US government is run by pedophiles and Perverts for pedophiles and perverts.)
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To: null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; AZ .44 MAG; Baynative; bgill; bitt; ...

p


39 posted on 01/21/2025 9:04:13 AM PST by bitt (<img src=' 'width=30%>)
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To: Soul of the South

My guess is that they would have to have multiple people in place for different rallies - cannot rely on one plan going perfectly and relying on one person to go through with it


40 posted on 01/21/2025 9:04:20 AM PST by PMAS (Vote with your wallets, there are 80 million of us - No China made, No Amazon)
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