FBI creates a new ‘Rapid Response’ account to counter constant online chatter
FBI Director Kash Patel’s agency created its own rapid response account around the same time Tucker Carlson released an illuminating documentary about Thomas Crooks – the young man who reportedly attempted to assassinate President Trump last year
by Summer Lane | November 14, 2025
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the leadership of Director Kash Patel, has created an official “Rapid Response” account on X, presumably to counter the many narratives and theories circulating online about the agency’s investigations and operations.
“Our team continues to face an avalanche of lies, smears, and falsehoods from the fake news and others seeking to undermine our work and national security,” the account stated.
It added, “No FBI has had the temerity to put truth as we have, they bent the knee to lies and DC swamp. We changed that on day 1, and now will go even further and more direct. The days of bad-faith attacks and fake-news narratives are over. Welcome to FBI Rapid Response.”
The account was created almost in tandem with the release of a new documentary episode from independent journalist Tucker Carlson detailing the background of Thomas Crooks – the suspect who allegedly attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024.
Carlson stated on X ahead of the documentary’s release, “The FBI told us Thomas Crooks tried to kill Donald Trump last summer but somehow had no online footprint. The FBI lied, and we can prove it because we have his posts. The question is why? Story tomorrow.”
FBI Rapid Response shot back, “This FBI has never said Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever.”
Presumably, the account was separating itself from the actions of previous FBI leadership under the Biden administration.
Based on Carlson’s reporting, Crooks allegedly did have an online footprint preceding the assassination attempt and was possibly linked to an online terrorist group that was monitored, allegedly, by the U.S. State Department.
“So here you have a volatile, troubled, possibly mentally ill young man with a long record of espousing violence in public. The FBI clearly knew he existed,” Carlson said in the doc. “…At the very end of his years, commenting in public espousing violence, an exchange with a mysterious figure affiliated with the group that we know is being monitored by the U.S. State Department. Hmmm.”
Some conservatives have suggested that the FBI’s new rapid response account was created specifically to respond to the investigative reporting in Carlson’s documentary about Crooks – a suspect whom the American public knows nearly nothing about.
“The FBI created a new ‘rapid response’ account to respond to Tucker’s reporting about all the information the FBI continues to hide about Trump shooter Thomas Crooks, and it got a Community Note on its first day,” said journalist Glenn Greenwald.
NY Post reporter Miranda Devine called the response account “pathetic.”
The account responded to her criticism with a list of recent FBI-spearheaded accomplishments, including the rescue of 5,000 child trafficking victims and 29,000 arrests overall, a “100% increase from the year before.”
The FBI Rapid Response account had garnered over 20,000 followers within the first several hours of its launch on Friday and is continuing to grow.
Update: FBI Director Kash Patel released a lengthy statement on X on Friday afternoon directly addressing the Thomas Crooks investigation, responding to Carlson’s documentary:
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