The FBI said on Friday that Trump was hit in the ear by a bullet or a fragment during an assassination attempt on July 13 at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Washington: Former President Donald Trump has agreed to be interviewed by the FBI as part of his investigation into the attempted assassination of him in Pennsylvania earlier this month, a special agent said Monday about how the gunman had researched mass attacks and explosive devices before the shooting.

The expected interview with the 2024 Republican presidential nominee is part of the FBI's standard protocol for speaking with victims during its criminal investigations. The FBI said on Friday that Trump was hit in the ear by a bullet or a fragment during an assassination attempt on July 13 at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“We want to get his perspective on what he observed,” said Kevin Rozek, special agent in charge of the FBI's Pittsburgh field office. “It's a standardized victim interview, just like we do for any other crime victim, in any other situation.”

Through more than 450 interviews, the FBI has created a portrait of gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks as a “highly intelligent” but 20-year-old recluse whose primary social circle was his family and who retained few friends. And lifelong acquaintances, Rojek said. Even among the online gaming platforms Crooks visited, his interactions with peers appeared to be minimal, the FBI said.

His parents have been “extremely cooperative” with the investigation, Rozek said. He said he had no advance knowledge of the shooting, a statement the FBI deemed credible.

The FBI has not disclosed a motive for targeting Trump, but investigators believe the shooting was the result of extensive planning, including the undercover purchase in recent months of chemical precursors used to make explosive devices. He was found in his car and at his home, and the deployment of drones about 200 yards (180 meters) from the rally site hours before the event in an apparent act of surveillance.

The day before the shooting, the FBI says, Crooks visited a local shooting range and practiced with the gun used in the attack.

After the shooting, authorities found two explosive devices in Crooks' car and a third in a room at his home. The devices seized from the car — which included ammunition boxes filled with explosives along with wires, receivers and ignition devices — were capable of detonating but did not because the receivers were in the “off” position, Rojek said. It is unclear how much damage they may have sustained.

The FBI said Crooks had shown an online interest in prominent public figures, searching online for information on individuals including President Joe Biden. In addition, Rojek said, Crooks sought information about mass shootings, improvised explosive devices, power plants and the assassination attempt in May of Slovakia's popular Prime Minister Robert Fico.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress last week that on July 6, the day Crooks registered to attend a Trump rally, he Googled: “How far was Oswald Kennedy?” On November 22, 1963, President John F. This is a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter who killed Kennedy.

Meanwhile, as new details emerged about law enforcement security lapses before the shooting, Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, was releasing text messages from members of the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit that showed how local authorities had communicated. with each other about a suspicious-looking man who had been hiding more than an hour before the shooting.

“The kid is learning around the building we're in. AGR I believe it is,” one officer wrote to other counter-snipers, including a photograph of Crooks. “I saw him looking at the stage with a range finder. FYI. If you want to signal the SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of it.”

AGR refers to the complex of buildings that house AGR International Inc, a supplier of automation equipment for the glass and plastic packaging industry. Crooks scaled the roof of one of the compound's buildings and fired eight shots at the rally stage with an AR-style rifle his father had legally bought a few years earlier.

Trump said he was “shot through the top of my right ear,” and was seen within days wearing a bandaged ear. One rallygoer, Cory Compatore, was killed, and two others were injured. Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service counter sniper.

In an interview with ABC News, the Beaver County officer who sounded the alarm said that after the text was sent, “I assumed someone was coming out to talk to this person or find out what was going on.”

A second official told ABC News that the group was supposed to receive face-to-face briefings with Secret Service counter-snipers whenever they arrived but did not.

An email seeking comment to the Secret Service was not immediately returned Monday.