By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Tuesday the FBI had discovered new information regarding the shooter who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024.
“It is new information about the shooter and about his background, about his history and that stuff that we didn’t know before,” Blanche told reporters during a White House press conference, declining to elaborate.
A person who reviewed documents detailing the new information said it includes that the shooter had packages delivered to him under the pseudonym Bob Dole, the late Republican senator and presidential candidate.
The records also note that the shooter purchased parts and tools to increase his rifle’s capacity from Amazon, the person said, who declined to be identified because the documents are not public.
An anonymous donor also paid to cremate the remains of the shooter, who was killed by a Secret Service sniper during the assassination attempt, which came as a total surprise to the family, according to the documents the person reviewed.
The gunman fired eight shots before he was killed, including one that grazed Trump’s ear and one that killed a bystander and injured two others. Investigators still have not identified a motive, the person added.
The comments from Blanche came hours after Trump claimed on social media that new information was found about the assassination attempt and alleged without evidence that it was really a “Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election.”
Investigations into the shooting have found the shooter acted alone and produced no evidence Democrats had anything to do with the shooting.
Trump added that former FBI Director Christopher Wray, whom Trump appointed in his first term but later grew to hate, “should pay a price” for how the department responded to the assassination attempt “and certainly for the things he said.”
Blanche, who was Trump’s personal lawyer at the time of the assassination attempt, said during the briefing that he was with Trump as the investigation into the shooting was playing out, trying to ascertain what happened.
“His frustration and concern about what the former director was doing is something that is not new,” Blanche said.
The Justice Department and FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and the White House referred to Blanche’s comments. Wray could not be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Nandita Bose and Gram Slattery; Editing by Costas Pitas, Michael Learmonth, Cynthia Osterman and Jamie Freed)
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