WASHINGTON: Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump was nearly assassinated, the FBI confirmed on Friday that it was indeed a bullet that struck the former president in the ear, and is trying to clarify conflicting accounts of what caused the former president's injury after a gunman opened fire at a rally in Pennsylvania. .
“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, either whole or broken into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased's rifle,” the agency said in a statement.
Called the FBI's statement the most definitive account of Trump's injuries, it follows director Christopher Wray's ambiguous comments earlier in the week that appeared to cast doubt on whether Trump was actually hit by a bullet.
The comment infuriated Trump and his allies and further fueled conspiracy theories that have flourished on both sides of the political aisle amid a lack of information since the July 13 attack.
Until now, federal law enforcement agents involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, have repeatedly refused to provide information about what caused Trump's injuries. The Trump campaign also refused to release medical records from the hospital where he was first treated or make doctors there available for questioning.
Instead, the updates come either from Trump himself or from Trump's former White House physician, Ronny Jackson, a staunch ally who now represents Texas in Congress. Although Jackson has been treating Trump since the night of the attack, he has come under considerable scrutiny and is not Trump's primary care physician.
The FBI's apparent reluctance to immediately vouch for the former president's version of events — along with the outrage he and some supporters directed at the agency after the shooting — also raised new tensions between the Republican nominee and the top federal law enforcement agency. , which could soon be in control again.
Trump and his supporters have repeatedly accused federal law enforcement of being armed against him.
Questions about the extent and nature of Trump's wound began immediately after the attack, as his campaign and law enforcement officials declined to answer questions about his condition or the treatment he received after Trump narrowly escaped death in an assassination attempt by a gunman s high-powered rifle.
These questions persist despite photos showing a bullet trail past Trump's head, photos showing Trump's teleprompt glass intact after the shooting, and Trump himself saying in a Truth Social post within hours of the shooting that he had been “shot.” by a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.'
“I immediately knew something was wrong because I heard whooshing, gunshots and immediately felt a bullet go through my skin,” he wrote.
Days later, in a speech accepting the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump detailed the terrifying scene while wearing a large white gauze bandage over his right ear.
“I heard a loud whoosh and felt something hit me really, really hard in my right ear. I was like, 'Wow, what was that? It could just be a bullet,'” he said.
“If I hadn't moved my head at that last moment,” Trump said, “the assassin's bullet would have hit perfectly and I wouldn't be here tonight.”
But the first medical report on Trump's condition didn't come until a full week after the shooting, when Jackson released his first letter last Saturday night. He said in the letter that the bullet that struck Trump “created a 2 cm wide wound that extended to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.” He also revealed that Trump underwent a CT scan at the hospital.
However, federal law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, declined to confirm the account. And Wray's testimony offered apparently conflicting answers to the issue.
“There is some question as to whether it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray testified before it appeared to be a bullet.
“I don't know if the bullet could have gone anywhere other than causing the pasture,” he said.
The following day, the FBI sought to clarify matters with a statement confirming that the shooting was “an attempted assassination of former President Trump that resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and injuries to several other victims.” The FBI also said Thursday that its shooting reconstruction team continues to examine bullet fragments and other evidence from the crime scene.
Jackson, who has treated the former president since the night of the July 13 shooting, told The Associated Press on Thursday that any suggestion that Trump's ear was bloodied by anything other than a bullet was rash.
“It was a bullet wound,” Jackson said. “You can't make statements like that. It leads to all these conspiracy theories.”
In his letter Friday, Jackson insisted there was “absolutely 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 the shooting, he was evaluated and treated for a “gunshot wound to the right ear.”
“After serving as an emergency medicine physician in the United States Navy for over 20 years, including as a combat medic on the battlefield in Iraq,” he wrote, “I have treated many gunshot wounds in my career. Based on my first-hand observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I fully agree with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the nursing staff at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the Shooting.”
The FBI declined to comment on Jackson's letters.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, when asked whether the campaign would release those hospital records or allow the doctors who treated him there to speak.
“The media is not shy about engaging in disgusting conspiracy theories,” he said. “Facts are facts and to question a heinous assassination attempt that ended up costing one life and injuring two others is beside the point.”
In emails last week, he told the AP that “medical information” had already been provided.
“It's sad that some people still don't believe there was a shooting,” Cheung said, “even after one person was killed and others were injured.”
Anyone who believes in conspiracies, he added, “is either mentally deficient or deliberately peddling untruths for political reasons.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.C., a close Trump ally, also urged Wray to correct his testimony in a letter Friday to the FBI director, saying the fact that Trump was hit by a bullet “was made clear in the briefings that my office received . and should not be a matter of dispute.”
“As head of the FBI, you should not create confusion over such matters because it further undermines the agency's credibility with millions of Americans,” he wrote.
Trump also attacked Wray in a post on his social network Truth, saying that “No wonder the once legendary FBI has lost the trust of America!
“No, unfortunately it was a bullet that hit my ear and hit him hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel,” he wrote.
On Friday, he called Wray's comments “so damaging to the great people who work at the FBI.”
Jackson has faced considerable scrutiny over the years.
After giving Trump a physical in 2018, he drew headlines suggesting that “if he'd had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200.”
He was reportedly demoted by the Navy after the Defense Department's inspector general issued a scathing report on his conduct as the White House's top doctor, which found that Jackson had made “sexual and derogatory” comments about a female subordinate and had taken prescription sleeping pills. raised concerns among his colleagues about his ability to provide proper medical care.
Trump appointed Wray in 2017 to replace fired James Comey as FBI director. But the then-president quickly grew weary of his hire as the bureau continued to investigate Russian election meddling.
Trump openly flirted with the idea of firing Wray as his term neared its end, and struck again after the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, home to retrieve boxes of classified documents from his president.
