Butler County Sheriff Mike Slupe criticized reports circulating on social media over the weekend as “irresponsible,” saying they contained false information.

Facebook posts, which allege an interaction between the office and Thomas Matthew Crooks ahead of the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt in reference to documents released by a conservative activist group, have been widely shared on social media, including by Butler County Commissioner Kevin Boozel.

Boozel shared two posts regarding the report Saturday — one seen by Butler Eagle staff Saturday at about 5 p.m. that was based on Judicial Watch reports and one later Saturday night addressing a statement from the Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff’s Office.

The activist group, Judicial Watch’s, website includes PDFs of heavily redacted documents it claims were acquired from the FBI through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Among other things, they allege an exchange with Crooks and a Butler County Sheriff’s Office deputy ahead of the 2024 assassination attempt on then-candidate President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show Grounds. The Butler Eagle cannot immediately verify the legitimacy of the documents.

On Sunday, June 7, Slupe spoke about the social media posts, saying at least parts of the reports are false and there could not have been an interaction with one of his deputies.

“Unequivocally, it is not, was not a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy,” Slupe said. “This is irresponsible reporting and fake. For everyone to assume it was a Butler County Sheriff deputy is concerning, and it’s a misidentification.”

Some of the posts online asserted the deputy in question was an officer with the Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff’s Office rather than Butler County, Pennsylvania.

In a later post, Boozel said “based on the documents released so far ... the deputy was reportedly a member of the Butler County Sheriff’s Office in Pennsylvania, not Ohio.”

Boozel clarified Sunday that he had not heard anything internally and that his posts were intended to clear up the misunderstanding about which Butler County Sheriff’s Office was involved. He also noted the name of the deputy alleged to have communicated with Crooks was redacted in the Judicial Watch documents and that there is “no evidence” of “any wrongdoing.”

He said he had not reached out to nor heard from the other two county commissioners or Slupe regarding the situation at the time.

Tom King, solicitor for the Sheriff’s Office, echoed Slupe’s statements on the matter and said the Sheriff’s Office looked into the matter in light of the posts.

“Following the assassination attempt, the Sheriff’s Office conducted a very thorough review and required all the deputies to file written statements, cooperated with the Secret Service and the FBI,” King said, “but none of this has anything to do with us.”

King explained Sunday morning that “out of an abundance of caution” the Sheriff’s Office reached out to the one female deputy interviewed by the FBI to confirm “Are you absolutely certain this wasn’t you?”

“And she said, it’s absolutely not her,” King said.

Judicial Watch references what it alleges are documents from the FBI about a July 2024 interview with a “special agent.” Within that alleged interview is an alleged email response to Crooks, referencing working on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons during the summer.

“One female deputy was interviewed and to this day, this deputy has not received, responded anything to emails from this killer,” Slupe said.

He emphasized she has not worked strictly afternoons on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during the summer and noted the email doesn’t “sound like” one of his people.

King said if the Sheriff’s Office would have found any merit to the reports circulating online it would have made every effort to be transparent.

“If the Butler County Pa. Sheriff’s Office had discovered or found any contact with Crooks, we would have reported this to anyone who would have listened, including the news media,” King said.

King expressed concerns the county could again be inundated with right-to-know requests because of the report.

“My goal tomorrow would be to reach out to Judicial Watch and to the FBI,” he said Sunday. “We’ll obtain our own copy of this circulated redacted statement, but we don’t have any reason to believe it was any deputy in our office.”

Slupe called upon the group to “debunk this.”

“It’s irresponsible and dangerous and there’s no merit to it,” he said.

Further, at least one of the circulating social media posts prompted the Butler County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio to issue a statement related to matter.

“Earlier today, a completely false ‘news’ story was circulated online that named Butler County Deputy Kinlee Hoyle of Ohio in connection with the tragic attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in Butler County, Pennsylvania,” the Butler County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio said in a statement. “Irresponsible reporting like this is unacceptable and places officers at risk. We should expect and demand better from our news media.

According to court documents obtained through the federal Public Access To Court Electronic Records (PACER) system in the Judicial Watch lawsuit, Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice No. 1:25-cv-02216, the last action in the case was a joint status report in April. At the time, the U.S. Department of Justice and Judicial Watch had agreed to work toward identifying and releasing eligible documents in response to the group’s FOIA request on a monthly basis. According to the case summary, some documents were released to Judicial Watch at the end of April. Any released in May have not been reported in the PACER system.

In an effort to verify whether the information is legitimate, the Butler Eagle has also filed a FOIA request for the same documents Judicial Watch alleges it received.

The case was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

During thevassassination attempt targeting Trump, Buffalo Township firefighter Corey Comperatore died shielding his family, and two other men were injured. Those men recently filed lawsuits against the United States.

Trump’s ear was injured in the attempt. He was treated at Butler Memorial Hospital.

Butler Eagle Night Editor Jacob Perryman contributed to this report.