Thomas Crook’s cell phone is seen on roof next to mysterious device leading to more unanswered questions into attempted assassination that shocked the world

The cell phone that may reveal why Thomas Crooks tried to kill Donald Trump has been seen with a transmitter for the first time, raising more unanswered questions about the assassination attempt.

The photo was taken by police officers seconds after the 20-year-old was shot dead by Secret Service agents after attempting to assassinate the former president at his campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

The presence of the transmitter raised new questions about whether the shooter was communicating with anyone else on the property and whether more chaos was planned that day.

Nicole Ford from Channel 11who obtained the exclusive photo, revealed that officers saw Crooks acting suspiciously outside Butler’s ground-floor AGR International building, from where he shot the ex-president, more than an hour before pulling the trigger at 6:11 p.m.

And Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is facing new questions after local law enforcement officials directly contradicted her claim that a Beaver County sniper team was stationed in the building from which Trump was shot.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that the killer had spent three hours inside the rally’s secure area before carrying out his attack, driving 50 miles north from his home in Bethel Park, on the southern edge of Pittsburgh.

At 3:00 p.m., Crooks set off a metal detector while attempting to gain access to the location. He was found to be carrying a rangefinder, a sight normally used by hunters and snipers to shoot from a distance.

But security officers let him in and kept an eye on him until he left the secured area a short time later, the official said.

He then disappeared from the radar until shortly before 5:45 p.m., when a Beaver County Sheriff’s Office officer spotted him acting suspiciously near the outer perimeter and took a photo.

On Monday, it was claimed that a team of police snipers were stationed inside the AGR International building and that they had seen him outside three times in the minutes before the attack.

A law enforcement official told CBS that no action was taken after one of the snipers first saw Crooks looking toward the roof of the building.

The shooter disappeared around a corner before he was seen a second time. He sat down and looked at his phone, where one of the snipers took a picture of him.

The sniper then radioed a command post after seeing Crooks pull out his rangefinder.

But no further action was taken until Crooks appeared a third time, this time carrying a backpack and disappearing from view as he walked toward the back of the building.

The sniper team radioed the information, but failed to realize that Crooks had now scaled their building.

According to Channel 11, multiple sources confirmed Tuesday that Crooks was on the roof with a gun for less than seven minutes before he was confronted by a Butler Township police officer.

That officer retreated after Crooks swung his AR-style weapon in his direction, leaving the killer free to take aim at his target.

Investigators have not yet determined the motive of Crooks, who has been largely absent from social media. They hope his phone may hold some clues.

But they found a bulletproof vest, three fully loaded magazines containing about 100 rounds and two remote-controlled explosive devices in Crooks’ car, according to a report Tuesday after the shooting.

A bulletproof vest and a third remote-controlled bomb were later found in the house where he lived with his parents.

The latest revelation that he also had a tracker on him has raised fears that Crooks planned to continue his killing spree if he had escaped from the roof alive. He may have had an accomplice who helped him do it.

Hours earlier, Crooks had asked his boss for the day off, saying he had “something to do” before traveling to Saturday’s meeting.

The would-be killer told his colleagues at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center that he would see them on Sunday.

But a Secret Service agent who attended the meeting in Butler made sure he would be the last person to see Crooks when he came face to face with the killer before he shot him dead, according to shocking video footage.

Officers spotted him and one of them pulled the trigger seconds after the 20-year-old Pennsylvania fire chief Corey Comperatore had been shot dead, seriously wounding two others and hitting Trump in the right ear from a distance of 480 feet.

“They were watching him as he was watching them,” a senior federal law enforcement official told CNN.

The video shows Crooks peering intently through the scope of his father’s AR-style weapon and firing into the crowd as bystanders shout from the base of the building.

Immediately a second volley of shots rings out and Crooks lies dead on the roof as the people on the ground gasp in horror.

“The Secret Service shouldn’t mess with people,” someone shouts. “Holy shit.”

He had climbed up the building’s air conditioning system and pulled himself onto the roof, where MAGA fans saw him crawling across the sloping surface with his rifle. He alerted police to the danger.

“I thought to myself, ‘Why is Trump still speaking, why haven’t they taken him off the stage?'” one witness told the BBC. “The next thing you know, five shots are fired.”

Crooks was a nutritional assistant at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where he provided food and care to the elderly and sick who had just been discharged from the hospital.

“We are shocked and saddened to learn of his involvement as Thomas Matthew Crooks performed his duties without concern and his background checks were positive,” administrator Marcie Grimm said in a statement.

A colleague at the institution said Crooks never expressed political views at work and was not a “radical.”

“It’s hard to see everything that’s happening online because he was a very, very good person who did something very bad. I wish I knew why,” he added.

The would-be assassin was a registered Republican and a high school senior set to graduate in 2022. Documents show that on Inauguration Day in 2020, he made a donation to a progressive group supporting President Joe Biden.

He graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County in May with an associate degree in engineering, according to school officials who said they were “shocked and saddened by the terrible turn of events.”

Crooks’ father Matthew was seen for the first time since the shooting Tuesday morning when he opened the door of the family’s home to FBI agents.

A neighbor of Crooks’ sister Katie said her brother helped her move into her apartment nearby three years ago. He described her as a “hardworking” woman who worked as a janitor at a local high school and as a waitress in a restaurant.

Both of Crooks’ parents are behavioral therapists, and Crooks’ father said he was dismayed by his son’s actions.

The Justice Department, the Secret Service and the FBI will brief senators on the investigation on Wednesday, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Tuesday night, while the Secret Service is under intense scrutiny over its handling of security at the meeting.

Republican officials gathered in Milwaukee are demanding the agency be held accountable as the federal government moves to implement stricter security measures for Trump and others being protected.

“Somebody, somewhere, really needs to answer a lot of serious questions,” Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, a member of the House Judiciary and Armaments Committee, told DailyMail.com.

The investigation launched by President Joe Biden after the incident is being led by the Justice Department, not Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.

“That speaks volumes,” said Jason Chaffetz, former chairman of the House Oversight Committee.