Possible Trump assassin wanted to join high school shooting club but was turned away because he shot ‘weirdly bad’

The Pennsylvania man who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump during a rally on Saturday had applied to join his high school’s shooting team but was rejected because he was a “terrible” shooter and made “offensive” jokes.

Crooks, 20, killed a heroic Trump supporter and wounded two others when he opened fire with an AR-style rifle on the grounds of the Butler Farm Show, but only grazed the former president before being shot and killed by the Secret Service.

A few years before the attack, Crooks had tried out for the Bethel Park High School rifle team, two former classmates told The Post.

The team at Bethel Park shoots with Anschütz single-shot rifles with diopter sights and .22 caliber ammunition, explained Jameson Murphy and another former student.

The school’s shooting range is 50 feet long and 21 feet wide and has seven firing positions.

Crooks once shot from the seventh lane – the lane closest to the right wall – and hit the left wall, completely missing all the targets on the back wall. He missed his target by nearly 20 feet, Murphy recalled.

“He tried … and was such an incredibly bad shooter that he didn’t make the team and left after the first day,” Murphy said.

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Crooks – described as a loner who came to class in hunting gear – “couldn’t shoot at all. He was a terrible shot,” the second classmate added.

Even the coach, it was said, had concerns about Crooks.

“Our old coach was a stickler, he trained Marine snipers, so he knew the people. He knew when someone wasn’t the best,” the former classmate explained.

“We noticed some things that Thomas said and how he interacted with other people… He said some things that were kind of disturbing,” the classmate said.

“You know, of course firearms are used in schools, so you have to be very careful in that regard.”

“He made some crass jokes that were inappropriate when there are guns in the school,” they said, without elaborating on what exactly Crooks said.