Nearly two weeks after the near-assassination of Donald Trump, the FBI confirmed on July 26 that the bullet had actually hit the former President’s ear, seeking to clear conflicting accounts of what caused the former President’s injuries after a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally. .
“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or broken into small pieces, fired from the rifle of a deceased subject,” the agency said in a statement.
The one-sentence statement from the FBI marked the most definitive law enforcement account of Trump’s injuries and followed ambiguous comments earlier in the week from Director Christopher Wray that appeared to cast doubt on whether Trump had actually been hit by a bullet.
The comments sparked outrage from Trump and his allies and fueled conspiracy theories that have flourished on both sides of the political aisle amid a lack of information following the July 13 attacks.
So far, federal law enforcement agents involved in the investigation, including the FBI and the Secret Service, have refused to provide information about what caused Trump’s injuries. The Trump campaign has also refused to release medical records from the hospital where he was first treated or make doctors there available for questioning.
Updates even came from Trump himself or from Trump’s former White House physician, Ronny Jackson, a powerful ally who now represents Texas in Congress. Although Jackson has been treating Trump since the night of the attack, he has been scrutinized and is not Trump’s primary care physician.
The FBI’s reluctance to immediately provide a bond for the former President’s version of events also fueled new tensions between the Republican nominee and the country’s main federal law enforcement agency, which he could regain control of. Trump and his supporters have for years accused federal law enforcement of weaponizing them, something Wray has consistently denied.
Speaking at an event later Friday in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump drew attention from the crowd when he addressed suggestions that he might have been hit by glass or shrapnel instead of a bullet.
“Did you see the FBI today apologizing?” he asked. “This will never end with these people.
Trump appeared on July 26 for the first time without a bandage on his right ear. The photos and videos show no signs of continuous bleeding, and there are no distinct holes or wounds.
Questions about the extent and nature of Trump’s injuries began immediately after the attack, as campaign officials and law enforcement officials refused to answer questions about his condition or the treatment he received after Trump was saved from death while trying to kill an armed man with a high-powered rifle.
The question remains despite photos showing traces of the projectile that grazed Trump’s head as well as the page of Trump’s teleprompter intact after the shooting, and Trump’s own account giving Truth Social a post within hours of the shooting that he had been “shot with”. the bullet that pierced my upper right ear.”
“I immediately knew something was wrong because I heard a whizzing sound, a shot, and immediately felt a bullet rip through my skin,” he wrote.
The next day, in a speech accepting the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump recounted the scene in detail, while wearing a large gauze bandage over his right ear.
“I heard a loud whizzing sound and it felt like something was pounding in my right ear. I said to myself, ‘Wow, what is that? It can only be a bullet,'” he said.
“If I hadn’t moved my head at the last moment,” Trump said, “the killer bullet would have hit, and I wouldn’t be here tonight.”
But the first medical account of Trump’s condition didn’t come until a week after the shooting, when Jackson released the first letter on Saturday afternoon. In it, he said that the bullet that struck Trump “produced a wound 2 cm wide that reached the cartilaginous surface of the ear.” He also revealed that Trump had received a CT scan at the hospital.
Federal law enforcement involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, declined to confirm the account. And Wray’s testimony gave conflicting answers on the issue.
“There was some question as to whether it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray said, before he assumed it was a bullet.
“I don’t know if the bullet, apart from hitting the pasture, could have fallen somewhere else,” he said.
On July 25, the FBI sought to clarify the matter with a statement asserting that the shooting was “an attempted assassination of former President Trump that resulted in the injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and injuries to several other victims.” The FBI also said Monday that the Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to examine bullet fragments and other evidence from the scene.
Jackson, who has been treating the former President since the night of July 13 shooting, told The Associated Press on July 25 that any suggestion that Trump’s ears were bleeding by anything other than a bullet was reckless.
“It was a bullet wound,” Jackson said. “You can’t make a statement like that. It’s fueled all these conspiracy theories.
In the July 26 letter, Jackson insisted there was “no evidence” Trump was hit by anything other than a bullet and said it was “wrong and inappropriate to suggest otherwise.”
He wrote that at Butler Memorial Hospital, where the GOP nominee was rushed after being shot, he was evaluated and treated for a “Shot Shot to the Right Ear.”
“Having served as an Emergency Medicine physician for over 20 years in the United States Navy, including as a combat medic on the battlefield in Iraq,” he wrote, “I have treated many wounds in my career. Based on direct observation of injuries, relevant clinical background , and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar injuries, I wholeheartedly agree with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital that day.”
The FBI declined to comment on Jackson’s letters.
Asked whether the campaign would release the hospital records, or allow the doctors who treated him there, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung blasted the media for the question.
“The media has no shame in engaging in disgusting conspiracy theories,” he said. “Facts are facts, and to question a horrific assassination attempt that ended up costing two lives and injuring two others is pointless.”
In an email last week, he told the AP that “medical readouts” are available.
“It’s sad that some people still don’t believe that there was a shooting,” Cheung said, “even though some people were killed and others were injured.”
Anyone who believes in such a conspiracy, he added, “is either mentally retarded or deliberately telling falsehoods for political reasons.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.S.C., a close Trump ally, also asked Wray to correct his testimony in a July 26 letter, saying that Trump was hit by a bullet “was explained in the briefing that my office received and should not be a point of contention.”
“As the head of the FBI, you should not create confusion about this matter, because it further damages the agency’s credibility with millions of Americans,” he wrote.
Trump also attacked Wray in a post on the Truth Social network, saying that “No wonder the FBI has lost America’s trust!”
“No, unfortunately, the bullet hit the ear, and hit hard. No glass, no shrapnel,” he wrote.
On Friday, he called Wray’s comments “so damaging to Great People who work for the FBI.”
Jackson has faced significant scrutiny over the years.
After organizing a physical for Trump in 2018, he made headlines for suggesting that “if he had had a healthier diet in the last 20 years, he could have lived to be 200.”
He was reportedly demoted by the Navy after the Defense Department’s inspector general released a scathing report into his conduct as the top White House physician that found Jackson had made “sexual and degrading” comments about female subordinates and taken powerful sleeping pills. causing concern from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper medical care.
Trump appointed Wray as FBI director in 2017 to replace the fired James Comey. But the President then rushed to hire him as the bureau continued its investigation into Russian election meddling.
Trump openly flirted with the idea of firing Wray during the term he was attracted to close, and lashed out again after the FBI executed a search warrant at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to recover a box of secret documents from the president.