FBI says Trump was indeed struck by bullet during assassination attempt
WASHINGTON — Almost two weeks after The Near Assassination of Donald TrumpOn Friday, the FBI confirmed that it was indeed a bullet that hit the former president’s ear, putting an end to conflicting accounts of what caused the former president’s injuries after a gunman opened fire at a rally in Pennsylvania.
“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, either whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the decedent’s gun,” the agency said in a statement.
The FBI statement marked the most definitive account of Trump’s injuries by police and followed ambiguous comments earlier this week from director Christopher Wray which raised doubts about whether Trump had actually been hit by a bullet.
The comment angered Trump and his allies and fueled conspiracy theories that have emerged on both sides of the political spectrum amid a lack of information following the July 13 attack.
So far, federal law enforcement officials involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, have repeatedly refused to provide information about the cause of Trump’s injuries. Trump’s campaign has also refused to release medical records from the hospital where he was first treated or to make the doctors there available for questions.
Updates instead come from Trump himself or from Trump’s former White House physician, Ronny Jacksona staunch ally who now represents Texas in Congress. Although Jackson has been treating Trump since the night of the attack, he has come under intense scrutiny and is not Trump’s family doctor.
The FBI’s apparent reluctance to directly endorse the former president’s version of events — coupled with the anger he and some supporters directed at the agency after the shooting — has also created new tensions between the Republican nominee and the nation’s top federal law enforcement agency, which he could soon regain control of.
Trump and his supporters have repeatedly accused federal law enforcement of using weapons against him.
Questions about the extent and nature of Trump’s injury arose immediately after the attack, when his campaign and law enforcement officials refused to answer questions about his condition or the treatment he received after Trump narrowly escaped death in an attempted assassination by a gunman wielding a high-powered rifle.
Those questions persist despite photos showing the trail of a projectile whizzing past Trump’s head, photos showing Trump’s teleprompter glass intact after the shooting, and the story Trump himself gave within hours of the shooting in a Truth Social post, in which he said he “was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”
“I knew immediately that something was wrong. I heard a whooshing sound, shots and immediately felt the bullet rip through my skin,” he wrote.
A few days later, in a speech accepting his nomination at the Republican Party convention in Milwaukee, Trump described the horrific scene in detail, wearing a large, white gauze bandage over his right ear.
“I heard a loud whooshing sound and felt something hit my right ear really, really hard. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet,'” he said.
“If I hadn’t moved my head at that very last moment,” Trump said, “the assassin’s bullet would have hit its target and I wouldn’t be here tonight.”
But the first medical report of Trump’s condition did not come until a week after the shooting, when Jackson published his first letter last Saturday night. In that letter, he said that the bullet that hit Trump “caused a 2cm wide wound that extended to the cartilage surface of the ear.” He also revealed that Trump had undergone a CT scan at the hospital.
But federal law enforcement officials involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, refused to confirm that story. And Wray’s testimony offered seemingly contradictory answers on the matter.
“There is some question as to whether it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray testified, before appearing to suggest that it was indeed a bullet.
“I don’t know if that bullet, besides causing the scrape, went anywhere else,” he said.
The next day, the FBI attempted to clarify matters with a statement confirming that the shooting was an “attempted assassination of former President Trump, resulting in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of 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 been treating 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 reckless.
“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” that 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 candidate was rushed after the shooting, he was examined and treated for a “gunshot wound to the right ear.”
“I served as an emergency physician in the U.S. Navy for over 20 years, including as a combat medic on the battlefield in Iraq,” he wrote, “and have treated many gunshot wounds in my career. Based on my direct observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my considerable experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I fully agree with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the physicians and nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the shooting.”
The FBI declined to comment on Jackson’s letters.
When asked whether the campaign would release the hospital records or allow the doctors who treated him there to speak, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung blasted the media for asking.
“The media has no shame in spreading disgusting conspiracy theories,” he said. “The facts are the facts, and to question a horrific assassination attempt that ultimately claimed one life and injured two others is incomprehensible.”
In emails last week, he told AP that “medical data” had already been provided.
“It is sad that some people still do not believe that a shooting took place,” Cheung said, “even after one person was killed and others were injured.”
Anyone who believes in the conspiracies, he added, “is either mentally retarded or is knowingly spreading lies for political reasons.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close Trump ally, also urged Wray to correct his testimony in a letter Friday to the FBI directorand said the fact that Trump had been hit by a bullet “was made clear in briefings my office received and should not be a point of discussion.”
“As head of the FBI, you cannot sow confusion about matters such as these, because doing so undermines the credibility of the agency with millions of Americans,” he wrote.
Trump also lashed out at Wray in a post on his Truth Social network, saying it’s “no wonder the once-famous FBI has lost America’s trust!”
“No, unfortunately it was a bullet that hit my ear, and hard. There was no glass, there was no shard,” he wrote.
On Friday, he called Wray’s comments “so damaging to the great people who work at the FBI.”
Jackson has come under fire frequently in recent years.
After Trump underwent a medical examination in 2018, he made headlines for suggesting that “if he had eaten healthier for the last 20 years, he could have lived to be 200.”
He was reportedly demoted from the Navy after the Department of Defense Inspector General published a damning report on his conduct as one of the White House’s top physicians which concluded that Jackson had made “sexual and derogatory” comments about female subordinates and taken prescribed sleeping medication, raising concerns among his colleagues about his ability to provide proper medical care.
Trump appointed Wray in 2017 to replace the fired James Comey as FBI director. But the then-president quickly grew disillusioned with his appointment as the agency continued its investigation into Russian election interference.
Trump openly toyed with the idea of firing Wray as his term neared its end. He lashed out again after the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to seize boxes of confidential documents from his presidency.
___ Colvin reported from New York.