Steve Bannon Faults Donald Trump's FBI Over 12-Year Wait for Butler Files

Steve Bannon on Monday faulted the Trump administration's own law enforcement agencies for the slow pace of releasing FBI records on the 2024 assassination attempt against Donald Trump. He said the "deep state" still controls the federal government one week before the midterm elections.

The complaint came on Bannon's War Room, where Tom Fitton, president of the conservative legal group Judicial Watch, said the FBI is releasing records from its investigation of the July 2024 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, at a pace that would take more than a decade to finish.

"And this is under the Trump administration, right?" Bannon asked. "The Trump administration is telling you they can't produce the assassination documents for over a decade, a decade to come."

Steve Bannon Blames the 'Deep State,' Not Donald Trump's Appointees

Bannon stopped short of blaming the president or the people he chose to run the FBI and the Justice Department. He blamed career officials instead.

"The deep state at work. We have no control over this apparatus. We have a few great people at the top, but the deep state does what it's going to do," Bannon said.

He then questioned why allies of the administration still have to go to court to get records from it. "I mean, why do we even need to use the Freedom of Information Act when we're in charge? We're in charge," he said, naming "USAID, the CIA, DNI, all the apparatuses."

This was not the first time Bannon has broken with the administration in recent days. He called the Pentagon's Iran strike plan "gasoline on the fire" last week. Most of Monday's episode, however, was about Brazil's presidential runoff, which Bannon and his guests called stolen. They presented it as a warning for Election Day in the United States.

What Tom Fitton Said About the Butler Shooting Files

Fitton said the FBI is "going through them at a rate of 500 pages a month, and at that rate, for 75,000 pages, it's going to take 12 years. And they just started." He also told Bannon: "The FBI is showing that we can't get lawfare documents for 158 years."

The 75,000-page figure comes from the Justice Department itself. In an October 2 release tied to its lawsuit, Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-02216), Judicial Watch said the department "has indicated that the total volume of records in the Crooks investigative file numbers approximately 75,000 pages." That release contained 249 pages. At 500 pages a month, the full file would take about 12.5 years to produce.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman, wounded Trump at the Butler rally and was shot dead by the Secret Service. Judicial Watch sued after the FBI turned down its July 2024 request for the bureau's investigative records, Fox News reported. Fox News said it asked the FBI and the Secret Service for comment and included no response.

The 158-year figure is the FBI's own estimate, but it covers different records. In a July 30 joint status report in a separate case, the bureau said it would take "approximately 158 years to process at a rate of 500 pages a month" all of the records found in a so-called "hidden room" at FBI headquarters. Judicial Watch says the room holds more than 2 million pages, including material connected to Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigations of Trump.

What the Trump Administration Has Said on Butler Records

Kash Patel, the Trump-appointed FBI director, said in February that the bureau had "put out all the information that we possibly and legally can while protecting any ongoing matters that are unrelated" to the Butler attack, WJLA reported. Nine days later, about 40 more pages produced under a public-records request were posted to the FBI's online vault. The bureau did not say why they had not been released earlier.

Fitton has been making the same case outside the War Room. "By handling it this way, authorities are creating the appearance of a cover-up," he told Fox News this month.

What to Watch Next

Bannon's complaint lands as Republicans head into the November 3 midterms with the president under water: PolitiKool's polling average puts Trump's approval at 37.6 percent, with 59.4 percent disapproving.

Both Judicial Watch cases are still before federal judges, who can set or speed up production schedules. Whether Trump's appointees move faster on their own, which is what Bannon says his side should not have to ask for, is still an open question.