Trump says Butler assassination attempt was 'Democrat Plot' without showing evidence

ABC News (US) · collected 2026-09-15 · by Nicholas Kerr
Read the original at ABC News (US) ↗

Summary

President Donald Trump alleged without providing evidence that the recent assassination attempt on him in Butler, Pennsylvania, which resulted in one death and two injuries, was part of a "Democratic Plot" intended to remove him from the election. Trump criticized FBI Director Christopher Wray and former President Joe Biden's FBI for mishandling the investigation, claiming that significant information about the case had been missing when he took office but recently discovered documents support his claims. FBI Director Kash Patel testified that there were no connections found between the suspect and others involved in political plots. Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged new information provided by the FBI but refused to elaborate on its具体内容不宜直接翻译,但根据要求,可以概述如下: 特朗普声称宾夕法尼亚州布特勒市对他发动的暗杀企图是一场“民主党阴谋”,旨在阻止他参加2024年大选,并批评了前总统拜登时期的联邦调查局处理此案。尽管特朗普没有提供证据支持其说法,但他指责现任局长克里斯托弗·雷在调查中存在问题,并要求对雷进行惩罚。FBI局长卡什·帕特尔则表示,在嫌疑人托马斯·马修·克鲁克斯和其他人的背景及历史方面发现了新的信息,但未发现他与其他人的联系证据。司法部长托德·布兰奇回应称,新信息由联邦调查局在参议院的质询中提供,但他没有进一步详细说明这些信息的具体内容。
Written by the local model on 2026-09-15, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event.

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
22
claim-shaped sentences
Uncertain
23%
5 of 22 hedged
Leaning
Leans strongly right
of the writing, not the subject
Correction & hedging signals
94.2
corrections and hedging in what we collected; not a measure of accuracy
Outlets on this story
unclustered
not grouped into a story yet
Narrative spread
1
articles carrying this framing
Analyzed 2026-09-15 · how these are computed

AI analysis (generated at analysis time, not now)

Why this leaning score
The article's own words the score was based on. Each is quoted verbatim and was checked against the article text before being stored, so you can find it in the original.
Score +0.65 Confidence high 3 quote(s) discarded as not found in the article
Leaning score +0.65 for article 12141 (high confidence, 1 verified quote) · logged 2026-09-15

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Compared with similar articles

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Publisher

ABC News (US) · 227 article(s) · 0 correction(s) detected
No corrections detected for this publisher. That may mean careful reporting, or simply that nothing has been checked.

Who wrote this

Nicholas Kerr
4 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction
🔮 Wray resigned as director before Trump was inaugurated for his second term because he feared that Trump firing him could cause turmoil within the department.
🔮 Energy Secretary says 'there may not be' a nuclear agreement with Iran President Trump said last week he "could not care less" if Iran struck a deal. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that a nuclear agreement with Iran, long sought by President Donald Trump, may not come to fruition after months of war with the country. "
🔮 In a social media post on Monday morning, Trump said that the "number one Goal is, and always will be" that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon.
Also by Nicholas Kerr
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.

Topics

Butler Democrat FBI Pennsylvania the Department of Justice

Subjects

Trump PERSON · 13× FBI ORG · 8× Blanche PERSON · 4× Crooks PERSON · 3× Patel PERSON · 3× Butler PERSON · 2× Christopher Wray PERSON · 2× Democrat NORP · 2× Thomas Matthew Crooks PERSON · 2× Wray PERSON · 2×

Narrative

Attorney General Todd Blanche refused to offer any evidence of the alleged plot, saying only that the “new information” Trump alluded to today was produced by the FBI in response to a Senate inquiry. “It is new information about the shooter and about his background, about his history and that's stuff that we didn't know before,” Blanche said when pressed on what the information was.
framing: mixed · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-15
🔮 Wray resigned as director before Trump was inaugurated for his second term because he feared that Trump firing him could cause turmoil within the department.

Claims (22 extracted, 5 hedged)

Trump claims Butler assassination attempt was a 'Democrat Plot' without showing evidence Patel testified the FBI had found no connections between the suspect and others. uncertain
FBI → claim → suspect
President Donald Trump alleged on Tuesday that the 2024 assassination attempt on him in Butler, Pennsylvania -- which killed one person and wounded two others -- was a "Democratic Plot" aimed at removing him from the election. asserted
which → allege → election
The president blasted the FBI under former President Joe Biden and said former FBI Director Christopher Wray, who Trump nominated during his first term, "should pay a price" for the investigation. asserted
Trump → blast → investigation
Trump lashed out at his FBI director after he testified two weeks after the shooting that it was still unclear at that point whether Trump was hit with a bullet or something else. uncertain
Trump → lash → bullet
Wray resigned as director before Trump was inaugurated for his second term because he feared that Trump firing him could cause turmoil within the department. uncertain
firing → resign → department
He did not reply immediately to ABC News' request for comment. asserted
He → reply → comment
Trump did not offer any evidence to back up his extraordinary claim of the assassination attempt being part of a broader plot. uncertain
attempt → offer → plot
He claimed that "most of the information" on the investigation was missing when he took office but new documents had recently been found, without elaborating. "Why wasn't it seen long ago?" Trump asked. asserted
Trump → claim → office
"This was all a Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election, that failed. asserted
that → get → Election
Dirty Cop Christopher Wray should pay a price for the way he handled this assassination attempt, and certainly for the things he said," Trump posted. asserted
Trump → pay → things
Asked in a Senate Oversight Committee hearing on Tuesday what his agency had learned about suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks since the shooting, FBI Director Kash Patel said that his agency looked for connections between Crooks and others, but found none. asserted
agency → ask → none
"We found no evidence that that individual was literally even speaking to any other human being other than his parents, who he resided with," Patel testified. asserted
Patel → find → who
Attorney General Todd Blanche refused to offer any evidence of the alleged plot, saying only that the “new information” Trump alluded to today was produced by the FBI in response to a Senate inquiry. “It is new information about the shooter and about his background, about his history and that's stuff that we didn't know before,” Blanche said when pressed on what the information was. asserted
information → refuse → that
Asked whether the Department of Justice would “punish” anyone after Trump saying Wray should "pay a price" for the investigation into the shooting, Blanche replied, “The Department of Justice doesn't punish,” Blanche said. asserted
Blanche → ask → Justice
I lived it. asserted
I → live → it
I mean, you have a situation where, where it's not really clear what the leadership of the FBI were doing in the weeks and months ahead of the attempted assassination to protect President Trump,” the attorney general said. asserted
general → mean → Trump
“That's the same organization that was simultaneously trying to put him in prison till he dies.” asserted
he → try → prison
Blanche said Patel "has undertaken a Herculean effort to go through all the documents and understand what was missed, if anything" and provide it to the public. asserted
what → say → public
Reports from Fox News and The New York Post on Tuesday said that they had reviewed federal documents related to the assassination attempt, which purportedly show that suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks used the alias "Bob Dole" to order suspicious packages. asserted
Crooks → say → packages
Fox and the Post also reported that Crooks' body was cremated in the wake of the shooting, a service reportedly paid for by an anonymous donor but did not report evidence of a conspiracy behind the shooting. uncertain
body → report → shooting
ABC News has not independently reviewed those documents. asserted
News → review → documents
Trump was struck in the ear by a bullet the Secret Service said came from Crooks' rifle as he fired from the roof of a nearby building at a campaign rally on July 13, 2024. asserted
he → strike → July
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