(The Lion) — Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks began focusing on the former president and his upcoming Butler, Pennsylvania rally around July 6, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

But the day before that pivotal moment, on July 5, California Gov. Gavin Newsom stumped for President Joe Biden just two miles from Crooks’ home – using apocalyptic terms to warn a small crowd about the alleged dangers of a Trump presidency.

And one U.S. senator tells The Lion this fact should “absolutely” be included in the investigation.

“That’s the plan, detailed plan, that Donald Trump has put out. Like I said, daylight and darkness. This is an existential moment in American history,” Newsom told the Biden supporters, as reported by the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

The Biden event was held at a strip mall in Castle Shannon, 2.2 miles by car from Crooks’ home address in Bethel Park.

Photos from the event show Newsom standing in front of a collage of political signs, including red “Stop Trump” signs.

According to Wray’s testimony, the FBI has discovered that a device connected to Crooks contained cached images of public figures based on “searches of news articles.”

“Starting somewhere around July 6th or so, [Crooks] became very focused on former president Trump and this rally,” Wray said.

Crooks also performed a Google search that day on “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy,” suggesting the 20-year-old was hatching a plan to assassinate Trump.

While it’s unclear whether he may have read about, or even attended, the Newsom rally, its proximity in both time and location to Crooks’ home, as well as the heavy local news coverage, have yet to be publicly considered as a possible motive. At least one local story also anticipated Trump’s upcoming rally in Butler.

Wray claimed in his testimony the shooter’s motive and ideology remain unclear, repeating what investigators have been publicly saying since Crooks fired multiple shots at Trump, hitting the Republican presidential nominee in the right ear, while also killing supporter Corey Comperatore and injuring two others.

“So far, a lot of the usual repositories of information have not yielded anything notable in terms of motive or ideology,” Wray told the congressional committee.

The FBI’s National Press Office told The Lion it had no comment about whether its investigation has considered the proximity of the Biden event – and Newsome’s incendiary remarks – as a possible stimulus for the shooting. A message left for the Secret Service with the same inquiry was not answered by time of publication.

The Lion asked Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, whether the timeline of Newsom’s visit near Crooks’ home should be considered in the federal investigation.

“I think that all of it ought to be included [in the investigation], absolutely,” he said.

The Lion also asked whether Hawley thought the attempted assassin took inspiration from Newsom’s words?

“Well, it’s possible,” he answered. “What’s certainly true is that the rhetoric that has come out of the Democrats, and come out of what was the Biden campaign and now the Harris campaign and calling Trump Hitler – a lot of the news media has been in on this.”

“This is just ridiculous, over-the-top rhetoric,” the senator added, giving multiple examples over the past three years.

“I mean, when you say that stuff – you say, like, there’s a Hitler, you say that he needs to be taken out and you say that he is an existential threat to the future of the country and existential threat to democracy – that’s going to have an effect on people who are kind of unhinged,” Hawley continued. “And clearly this kid had major, major problems. And here we are.”

After the Castle Shannon rally, Newsom also met with members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in nearby downtown Pittsburgh, where he repeated the “daylight and darkness” imagery in front of a similar collage of political signs, including the same “Stop Trump” signs from the other rally.

“This election’s really about daylight and darkness,” Newsom said.

SEIU has many members in the healthcare industry, and Crooks was reportedly employed as a “dietary aide” at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, local TribLive.com reported.

However, an operator at the health care center told The Lion she didn’t think the employees “were union,” before transferring the call to the payroll office, which did not reply to a message left by time of publication.

From Pittsburgh, Newsom travelled east the following day and stumped for Biden near Philadelphia, continuing the dystopian warnings of electing Trump.

“If Donald Trump succeeds, God help us, we will roll back the last half century,” the California governor told the crowd in Bucks County, using the same “daylight and darkness” metaphors as before.

In light of the near-assassination of Trump just a week later, Hawley says it’s time the Democrats “turn down” the rhetoric and federal agencies give Americans more information about what happened in Butler.

“Number one, the Democrats need to turn down their ridiculous rhetoric, their dangerous rhetoric on Trump being Hitler or Trump being an existential threat. I mean, come on, show some responsibility,” Hawley told The Lion.

“But secondly, the FBI, the Secret Service, they need to get the American public the facts. And right now, they’re not doing that. They’re trying to control the information. They’re trying to restrict the information. We deserve to know the truth. And it’s time they came forward with it.”