Trump’s shooter gave $15 to a “progressive” PAC — but there’s more to the story

He was also a registered Republican. Here’s what else we know.

Never has so much turned on divining one 20-year-old’s personal politics. Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate Donald Trump yesterday in Butler, Pennsylvania, and, with his social media record not available yet, all we have to go on is two pieces of publicly available political information. We know he registered as a Republican in Pennsylvania and we know that on January 20, 2021 – the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration – a person of the same name with the same address as the voter file gave $15 to Progressive Turnout Project PAC, which some on the right are describing as “hard left.”

It’s anything but. 

We’ll learn a lot more about the young man in the coming days, but narratives are forming now, so it’s important to understand as much as we can about the PAC he gave to. 

In short, it’s one of those spammy PACs that carpet bombs your inbox, delivering emails with splashy colors and wild fonts and using every trick in the book to convince people to give small amounts of money. 

Crooks’s donation, the PAC told Drop Site in a statement, “came in response to an email about tuning into the inauguration.” In other words, the mere fact of his having given to this PAC on this day, based on that kind of an email, tells us very little about his politics. 

“The email address associated with the contribution only made the one contribution and was unsubscribed from our lists 2 years ago.” Crooks would have been 17 at the time, though such contributions are legal for minors within limits.

These types of email-based PACs have become a scourge for both parties. Typically, the money raised by this PAC goes to their main consultant, the controversial Mothership Strategies and then moves back and forth between Mothership PACs, with precious little of it getting spent on actual campaigning. You probably get emails just like it nearly everyday. Here’s one of them from around the time of Biden’s inauguration, which I received because I also get emails from The Nation magazine and Mother Jones, both of which have rented their email lists to Progressive Turnout Project: 

In its comment to Drop Site News, the PAC condemned the violence. “While we vehemently disagree with Donald Trump, we believe our differences must be settled with ballots--not bullets. We unequivocally condemn political violence in all of its forms, and we denounce anyone who chooses violence over peaceful political action,” the statement said.

When I was at The Huffington Post, we published an investigation by Paul Blumenthal into Mothership’s relentless “churn and burn” email strategy. The Democratic Party subsequently cracked down on them, urging candidates and party committees to shun them and others like them. (Even a year earlier, in 2015, the party was still defending the practice, as Samantha Lachman and I reported.)

Last year, Politico did a profile of Mothership’s resilience, noting they had survived the attempted shunning: 

Mothership said its fees vary by client and that most of the funds paid to the firm are actually passed on to other vendors for advertising, acquisition, and other costs. But in certain cases, its clients have ended up either sending huge amounts back to the firm or in difficult financial straits. Brady PAC, for example, found itself fighting a more than $600,000 debt it owed to Mothership that it negotiated to be significantly lower. The pro-gun control group has been paying the firm back in $14,000 monthly installments, according to FEC records. Brady PAC declined to comment.

Progressive Turnout Project has paid Mothership more than $3.7 million this year while raising $11.5 million. (That fundraising haul includes $2.6 million in transfers from affiliated PACs that are also Mothership clients.)

…

Progressive Turnout Project said in a statement that Mothership had helped it “raise far more for our programs than we could have ever imagined,” and Retired Americans PAC called the firm “responsive and collaborative.”

I have a Twitter thread going where I’ll be adding additional details as I find them. I also asked Progressive Turnout Project PAC if they could forward me the specific inaugural email that triggered Crooks’s donation. If they do, I’ll attach it to that thread and update the web version of this email.

One quick thought on the political ramifications: My first instinct was that the assassination attempt would seal the election for Trump, particularly given the imagery it produced. But others have noted that it may also feed into the fear the public has that another Trump term means a return to nonstop political chaos. There’s no reason for us to guess, though, as we’ll have polling in a few days that answers the question. 

P.S. We’re finishing up an article on the assassination of acclaimed Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif, which should be out soon. At Drop Site, we intend to build out a South Asia investigative desk that continues the reporting we’ve done on India’s global assassination program and on the U.S.-backed crackdown on democracy in Pakistan. To help expand that coverage, we’re running a targeted fundraising campaign to raise $200,000 annually to fund the bureau. If you or anybody you know wants to make a tax-deductible contribution toward that project, please do so at this link or send us an email at majorgiving@dropsitenews.com.

P.P.S Correction: An earlier version of this story said that the donation at the age of 17 would have been illegal. Some such donations are legal for minors to make.

P.P.S. A reader who was getting emails from the PAC in early 2021 sent in two possible appeals that could have gotten Crooks or somebody at his house — perhaps his father, who shared a similar name — to click and then donate.