Overview

Judicial Watch’s latest release of 48 heavily redacted pages has renewed scrutiny of the July 13, 2024, attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The documents indicate that a female deputy with the Butler County Sheriff’s Office in Pennsylvania exchanged two emails with 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks days before the rally. While the content of the messages remains blacked out, the correspondence contradicts the long-standing “lone actor” narrative pushed by federal agencies.

Pros

• Provides new evidence of direct contact between Crooks and local law enforcement prior to the event.
• Highlights ongoing transparency issues, as agencies continue to withhold details nearly two years after the incident.
• Underscores the role of outside groups like Judicial Watch in surfacing records that official oversight bodies have not.

Cons

• Heavy redactions prevent the public from understanding the nature or significance of the emails.
• Speculation about institutional cover-ups or overlooked security lapses remains unverified due to withheld information.
• Online misreporting initially confused the Pennsylvania deputy with an unrelated Ohio official, complicating public discourse.

Specs

• 48 pages of FBI and local-agency records released via Judicial Watch litigation in June 2026.
• Emails exchanged between Crooks and a still-unidentified female Butler County, Pennsylvania, deputy.
• Redactions cite privacy, law-enforcement techniques, and sources-and-methods exemptions.

“If you’re not hiding anything, you just made it look more suspicious,” host Paul Glasco said of the continued redactions. “We shouldn’t have to wait for years of slow-drip lawsuits just to find out local law enforcement was in his inbox before the rally.”