Unsurprisingly, former President Donald Trump’s assassination attempt sparked a wave of conspiracy theories. Everyone wants to know what happened, and with little information available to explain Saturday’s shocking violence, people are just making up stories. One of the most popular targets of conspiracy theory speculation so far is a 2022 corporate video produced by the multinational investment group BlackRock that, bizarrely, features Thomas Matthew Kerr, the gunman in this weekend’s assassination attempt. Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Shortly after the shooting, online conspiracy theorists noticed Crooks appearing in a video produced by the company. On Monday, BlackRock confirmed to CNN that the man in the video was Crooks, but also took it offline.
“In 2022, we ran an ad featuring a Bethel Park High School teacher, with several unpaid students briefly seen in the background, including Thomas Matthew Crooks Thomas Matthew Crooks,” a company spokesman said Sunday, the day after the shooting. “We will provide all video footage to the appropriate authorities and have removed the video from circulation out of respect for the victims.” Gizmodo reached out to BlackRock for more information but did not immediately receive a response.
There’s nothing special about the video: It’s a 30-second ad for the company that manages public high school teachers’ pensions, including a quote from Bethel High School, where Crooks attended. A short clip of a teacher speaking. The con man only appears in the film for a few seconds. However, the bigots in the MAGA-land online crowd have no qualms about claiming that the presence of the gunman in the video is evidence of evil. “The Trump shooter in the BlackRock ad…what a coincidence…” wrote one Twitter account, whose bio described it as “anti-woke” and “anti-fake news.” The more unhinged among them seem to claim that this is proof that Crooks is a candidate for MK-ULTRA – that is, some kind of assassin brainwashed by the government.
The rabbit hole goes deeper and deeper…
Shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks featured in 2023 BlackRock ad
• The BlackRock commercial was filmed at Bethel Park High School, where Crooks attended.
• The Liar can be seen at the 19 second mark.
🔴My thoughts:
This stinks to me… pic.twitter.com/ag76CTuhhq
— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) July 14, 2024
This isn’t the first time BlackRock has faced right-wing wrath. The company has become the target of conservative ire in recent years, largely over its embrace of so-called ESG investing. ESG stands for “Environmental, Social and Governance,” and as a framework they represent a tepid attempt by corporate America to care about nothing but making a lot of money. As the Institute of Corporate Governance puts it, ESG “is used to assess a company’s sustainability and ethical impact.” Anyway, long story short, when some in the MAGA space heard that a certain number of companies were investing in ESG, they immediately panicked, claiming that this was evidence of a widespread “woke” conspiracy.
Crooks, who was shot to death by a Secret Service gunman on Saturday, has so far proven mysterious about his personal political views. After the shooting, false information circulated on the Internet claiming that the shooter was a member of the “Antifa” organization. These claims were quickly debunked. After Crooks was officially identified as the shooter, reports quickly emerged that he was a registered Republican, while people who said they knew him in high school said he was “definitely a conservative.” One complicating factor is that Crooks reportedly made a $15 donation to a Democratic-aligned political action committee on the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
