WASHINGTON: Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump was nearly assassinated, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed on Friday that a gunshot wound to the former president's ear was the result of a gunshot wound, as the FBI seeks to clarify conflicting facts about what caused the former president's injuries after a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally.
“What struck former President Trump’s ear was a bullet, either fragmented or fired from the victim’s rifle,” the agency said in a statement.
The FBI statement is the clearest law enforcement report yet on Trump's injuries, and follows vague comments earlier this week from FBI Director Christopher Wray that appeared to cast doubt on whether Trump was actually shot.
The comments have drawn anger from Trump and his allies and fueled widespread conspiracy theories across both sides of the political spectrum amid a dearth of information in the wake of the July 13 attacks.
So far, federal law enforcement officials involved in the investigation, including the FBI and the Secret Service, have repeatedly refused to provide information about what caused Trump's injuries. Trump's campaign has also refused to release medical records from the hospital where he was first treated or to allow doctors there to answer questions.
The update came either from Trump himself or from Ronny Jackson, Trump's former White House physician, a staunch ally who now represents Texas in Congress. Although Jackson has been treating Trump since the night of the attack, he remains under scrutiny and is not Trump's personal physician.
The FBI's apparent reluctance to immediately endorse the former president's story, as well as the anger he and some of his supporters expressed toward the agency in the aftermath of the shooting, have reignited tensions between the Republican nominee and the nation's most important 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 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 narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by a gunman with a high-powered rifle.
These questions remain despite photos showing a bullet wound through Trump's head, photos showing the glass of Trump's speech machine was intact after the shooting, and Trump's own statement in a post on Truth Social hours after the shooting that he was “hit with a bullet wound to the top of his right ear.”
“I knew immediately something was wrong because I heard a whistle, a gunshot and immediately felt the bullet penetrate my skin,” he wrote.
Days later, in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump described the horrific incident in detail as he wore a large white bandage over his right ear.
“I heard a loud bang and felt something hit my right ear really hard. I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It must be just a bullet,’” he said.
“If I hadn’t moved my head at the last second, the killer bullet would have hit the target perfectly, and I wouldn’t be here tonight,” Trump said.
However, the first medical report on Trump's condition was released only a week after the shooting, when Jackson released his first letter on Saturday evening. In the letter, he said the gunshot wound to Trump “caused a 2cm (0.6-inch) wound that extended down to the cartilage in his ear.” He also revealed that Trump had undergone a CT scan at a hospital.
However, federal law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation, including the FBI and intelligence agencies, have refused to confirm the claim, and Ray's testimony has provided conflicting answers on the issue.
“There was some question as to whether what hit his ear was a bullet or shrapnel,” Ray testified, before seemingly implying that it was an actual bullet.
“I didn't know that the bullet could have landed somewhere else, in addition to being shattered,” he said.
The next day, the FBI tried to clarify the facts by issuing a statement confirming that the shooting was “an attempted assassination of former President Trump that resulted in his injuries, the death of his brave father, and the injuries of several others.” The FBI also said Thursday that its shooting investigators were continuing to examine bullet fragments and other evidence from the scene.
Jackson, who has been treating the former president since the night of July 13, told The Associated Press on Thursday that it would be reckless to suggest Trump's ear was bleeding from anything other than a gunshot wound.
“It was a gunshot wound,” Jackson said. “You can’t say that because it leads to a lot of conspiracy theories.”
In a letter Friday, Jackson insisted there was “no evidence” that Trump was shot with anything other than a bullet, and he said it was “wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.”
He wrote that at Butler Memorial Hospital, where the Republican nominee was rushed to after the shooting, he was evaluated and treated for a “gunshot wound to his right ear.”
“I served in the United States Navy as an emergency medicine physician for over 20 years, including as a combat medic in Iraq,” he wrote. “Throughout my career, I have treated numerous gunshot wounds. Based on my firsthand observation of the injuries, my relevant clinical experience, and my extensive experience in assessing and treating patients with similar injuries, I wholeheartedly 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 letter.
When asked if the campaign would release information about those hospitals or allow the doctors who treated him there to speak, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Chiang blasted the media for making such a request.
“The media has no shame in engaging in despicable conspiracy theories,” he said. “Facts are facts, and questioning a despicable assassination attempt that ultimately resulted in the death and injuries of two others is beyond bounds.”
In an email last week, he told the AP he had “sent medical information.”
“Unfortunately, some people still don’t believe there was a shooting, even though one person was killed and others were injured,” Cheung said.
He added that anyone who believes in these conspiracies “must either be mentally ill or deliberately spreading falsehoods for political reasons.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, also called on Wray to correct his statement in a letter to the FBI director Friday, saying the fact that Trump was shot was “clearly stated in the briefings my office has received and should not be a matter of dispute.”
“As the head of the FBI, you should not create confusion about this issue, because that will further undermine the credibility of this agency with millions of Americans,” he said.
Trump also attacked Ray in a post on his Truth Social network, saying, “No wonder the FBI, once a reputable organization, has lost the trust of America!”
“No, it was a bullet that hit my ear hard. There was no glass or shrapnel,” he wrote.
On Friday, he said Ray’s comments were “deeply damaging to the good people who work at the FBI.”
Jackson has faced intense scrutiny over the years.
After Trump had a physical in 2018, he made headlines for saying, “If he had eaten healthily for the past 20 years, he could have lived to be 200.”
He was reportedly removed from the Navy after the Defense Department's inspector general released a scathing report on his behavior as the White House's top physician, which found Jackson made “demeaning and derogatory remarks” about female subordinates and took prescription sleeping pills, prompting colleagues to raise concerns about his ability to provide proper medical care.
Trump appointed Wray to replace James Comey as FBI director, who was fired in 2017, but the president was unhappy with the position at the time as the FBI continued its investigation into Russian election interference.
Trump has openly flirted with the idea of firing Wray as his term draws to an end, and he lashed out again after the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to recover boxes of classified documents from his presidency.
