FBI Is Not Fully Convinced Trump Was Struck by a Bullet
“There is some question about whether or not it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday.
Chris Kleponis/Getty
FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during a marathon testimony on Wednesday that investigators still do not know if former President Donald Trump was grazed by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel during his attempted assassination.
Twice during the hours-long session, Wray told lawmakers that the FBI was still working to determine what exactly struck the former president on his right ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “My understanding is that either it [a bullet] or some shrapnel is what grazed his ear,” Wray told Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA).
Later during the hearing, Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked Wray if investigators knew where all eight bullets fired by Thomas Crooks ended up after the shooting.
“There is some question about whether or not it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear, so it is conceivable, as I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else,” Wray testified.
Jordan did not follow up with any questions about the shrapnel.
Speaking at the Republican National Convention just days after the assassination attempt, Trump said the bullet “came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life.”
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“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear,” the former president described the scene.
Trump’s former White House physician, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), later told a conservative talk show that he examined the wound in the days immediately after the shooting. “It [the bullet] was far enough away from his head that there was no concussive effect from the bullet, and it just took the top of his ear off.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray: “With respect to former president Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.” pic.twitter.com/3TNjLZp4S1
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 25, 2024
As the investigation into the assassination attempt continues, Wray offered the committee some new insights—including the revelation that Crooks tried to research how far away the shooter was from former President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in 1963.
Trump responded with a post on Truth Social while the hearing was still taking place, calling for Wray to resign—but not for anything he said about the assassination attempt. Instead, Trump lambasted the FBI director for claiming that he found his interactions with President Biden “uneventful and unremarkable.”
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