Did Trump’s shooter leave a message on Steam?

On July 13, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks allegedly shot former U.S. president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump. And according to some reports, he might have left some messages on Steam about the apparent assassination attempt.

These reports are conflicting, however, leaving many to wonder if Crooks really did leave some sort of message on a gaming or social media platform like other shooters have done in the past.

Did Thomas Matthew Crooks say he was going to shoot Donald Trump on Steam?

There was a message posted to Steam by an account with Thomas Crooks’ name that indicated July 13 would be his “premiere,” but it’s currently not certain that the account actually belonged to Crooks.

Media outlets began picking up the story on July 18 that Crooks allegedly posted a message in a Steam forum that said “July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds.” Fox News reported that the Secret Service even told U.S. Senators in a closed meeting that Crooks had posted the message to Steam.

But the veracity of these reports is in question as a U.S. official reportedly told CNN that investigators have come to believe the account that posted the message was fake and didn’t actually belong to Crooks. As Bloomberg reporter Cecilia D’Anastasio noted on X/Twitter, the troll accounts on Steam using some version of Crooks’ name now number in the hundreds.

Still, it’s possible Crooks made an account on Steam and posted that message. But with conflicting reports and no official word from U.S. government investigators or the Secret Service, it’s impossible to confirm if the message was really left by Crooks or if an internet troll saw the news of Trump’s shooting and immediately ran to make a fake account.