President Trump calls on Apple to decrypt iPhones of would-be assassins

Former President Trump and presumptive GOP nominee for U.S. President moments after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
Former President Trump and Republican nominee for U.S. President moments after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

Former U.S. President and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called on Apple to aid federal investigators in accessing phones and applications belonging to two men accused of plotting assassination attempts on his life.

Stephanie Lai for Bloomberg News:

The former president said that the FBI had been unable to access “three potentially foreign-based apps” on the phone of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the Pennsylvania man who shot at and grazed Trump’s ear during a rally in July.

Trump also said that alleged would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh, who was captured after a shootout with US Secret Service at Trump’s Florida golf club, had six cell phones that the FBI had “likewise been unable to penetrate.”

“They must get Apple to open the foreign apps, and they must get Apple to likewise open the six phones from the second lunatic,” Trump told supporters at a campaign event Wednesday in North Carolina.

Trump’s call for assistance from the firm comes a day after he was briefed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on intelligence suggesting Iran was attempting to assassinate him… Iran has targeted Trump administration officials after the January 2020 death of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Soleimani was killed in a drone strike ordered by Trump.


MacDailyNews Take: Can’t do it, regardless of the reason. It’s all or nothing; nothing or all. There is no “one time only” exception.

There have been people that suggest that we should have a back door. But the reality is if you put a back door in, that back door’s for everybody, for good guys and bad guys. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, December 20, 2015


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4 Comments

  1. MDN is right. Can’t do it, no matter how good the reason is.

    By the way: Biden, pissed at being deposed, screwed Obama by anointing Kamala, now they’re stuck with her. Their half-assed loser patsy missed. Their next half-assed loser patsy couldn’t even get a shot off.

    Will they try harvesting and stuffing again? Can they harvest and stuff enough?

    Too Big To Rig!

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  2. People who so old they don’t understand basic, everyday tech running the country, (or attempting to run the country).

    Like Nikki Haley said, first party who dumps their 80 year old candidate wins.

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  3. I do not understand the stupidity of Apple having to allow access, is the gov that incompetent?
    1. Open 1 phone, opens all, insecures entire OS!
    2. What happened to police doing their work as before SmartPhones?
    3. Police can easily access any phone, through bloody israeli Pegasus & Cellebrite spy software, so why ask Apple to dilute system?!

    1. Of course they can decrypt it on their own. “Never let a good crisis go to waste” though. They want the backdoor to make it easier, faster and set the precedent that every iPhone owner is their cattle, be happy the government hasn’t insisted on branding us… yet.

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