Trump gunman Thomas Crooks likely had a Gab account that he used to ‘support’ President Biden, site’s CEO says
The gunman who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump appears to have used the controversial alt-right favored social media platform Gab to spread messages “in support of President Biden,” according to the platform’s founder.
Gab CEO Andrew Torba said he learned Wednesday that Thomas Matthew Crooks “may have had an account on our platform” after getting “an emergency disclosure request from a law enforcement agency.”
The account @epicmicrowave — which the CEO stressed he has been “unable to confirm” was definitely Crooks’ — “posted on the site nine (9) times total,” Torba tweeted just 30 minutes after getting the law enforcement request.
“While the account made very few posts on the site, the majority of them were in support of President Biden,” said the CEO of the platform launched in 2016 as a completely free-speech alternative to Twitter.
“A number of posts in particular expressed support for President Biden’s COVID lockdowns, border policies and executive orders.”
Torba shared images of🥂 pro-Biden ❀comments made by the account, with its handle blacked out.
In one, the poster mocked someone sharing an election proj💧ection, writing in February 2021: “Didn’t you also think Biden would lose in a landslide yeah I would n꧋ot be very confident in your election predictions.”
In another thread, the user defended Biden’s border policies with a study that compared crime statistics for undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants and American citizens in Texas.
Would-be Trump assassin's timeline of terror
“Biden executive orders don’t incentivize human trafficking as human traffickers aren’t in🎐terested in citizenships, likewise the majority of illegal immigrants are not criminals and in fact some studies (such as the one ) show lower rates of crime committed by these individuals,” 🌊the poster wrote.
“It is also unclear if the extensive path to citizenship is in fact effective at routing out potential bad actors hence why there is a review of that system,” the user added.
Torba said he was “disclosing this information at significant personal and business risk.
“If the past is any guide, defying the D.C. consensus by publishing the first definitive evidence that the shooter was a Biden supporter — something Democrats and their media allies have tried to cover up and deny at every turn — has a high probability of resulting in significant political and media backlash,” he wrote.
“We have saved the account data pending receipt of a search warrant,” he stated.
Crooks, 20, opened fire with an AR-15 rifle during Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13, clipping the former president in the ear and killing a rally attendee before he was shot dead by a S𝓡ecret Service sniper.
Authorities have yet to elaborate on a motive for the attack, which has sparked fierce bipartisan outrage at Secret Service failingဣs in protecting the presidential candidate.
Formed in 2016, Gab became a favorite of many fringe voices, especially those on the alt-ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚright who were censored on other messagi🗹ng platforms like Twitter.
It was briefly forced offline in 2018 after it emerged it had been used by mass shooter Robert Bowers to spread antisemitiꩵc hate before he gunned down 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Even then, Torba had pressed the importance of his site’s free-speech message.
“The answer to bad speech or hate speech — however you w🌟ant to define that — is always more speech, and it always will be,” Torba said at the time.
It has faced many more controversies since then, including its use by many who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, the CEO noted in his Wednesday post a𒁏bout Crooks.
“In the past, we have been the target of politically motivated inquiries from both the House Oversight Committee and the Joint Committee on the January 6th Attacks, both of which sought to interfere with our mission of protecting free speech online,” Torba wrote.
