Gab founder releases alleged FBI letter demanding Trump shooter account info after agency disputes left-wing identity
Andrew Torba, the founder of the alternative social media platform Gab, published an alleged letter from the FBI on Tuesday to bolster his previous claims that the Trump shooter was a liberal who had an account on his site.
Dated July 24, the letter issues an Emergency Disclosure Request (EDR) for "One Possible Gab account associated" with 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot and killed by counter snipers at a rally in Pennsylvania after opening fire on former president Donald Trump.
"This Emergency Disclosure Request is being submitted to identify any co-conspirators," the alleged letter states before citing the username in question as "epicMicrowave."
Torba first made mention of the account last Wednesday when he claimed that @epicMicrowave had espoused views supportive of President Joe Biden.
"While the account made very few posts on the site, the majority of them were in support of President Biden,” Torba claimed. “A number of posts in particular expressed support for President Biden’s COVID lockdowns, border policies and executive orders.”
Torba also stated that he had learned of the account due to "an emergency disclosure request from a law enforcement agency." Many online were skeptical at the time that the account was linked to Crooks.
Torba appears to have released the alleged letter in response to a statement from the FBI on Tuesday that Crooks had posted content that was "extreme in nature" on an unnamed social media site during 2019 and 2020.
“There were over 700 comments posted from this account,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. “Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature.”
Since the shooting, partisan attempts have been made to pin down the shooter's political ideology. Conservatives have pointed to a $15 donation Crooks made in 2021 to a liberal campaign group. Liberals, on the other hand, note that records show Crooks was a registered Republican.
The FBI's recent statement, however, does not name what social media site Crooks' alleged comments were discovered on. There's no evidence at this time that the account referenced by the FBI was from Gab.
And the posts highlighted by Torba on Gab were made in 2021, not 2019 and 2020 as stated by the FBI. The agency at this time has not confirmed that @epicMicrowave belonged to Crooks. That account also had just eight posts that could be identified.
Torba also admitted last week that he too was "unable to confirm that the account in question actually belonged to him."
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