The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Friday that former US President Donald Trump was indeed hit by an assassin’s bullet or fragments, putting an end to questions over the nature of the Republican candidate’s injury at a campaign rally this month.
“The bullet that struck former President Trump’s ear was either a whole bullet or a fragmented bullet that was fired from the deceased’s rifle,” the FBI said in a statement.
Trump suffered an injury to his right ear during an election rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, leaving his ear covered in blood.
The FBI treated the attack — in which a gunman fired eight shots from outside the event’s security perimeter — as an assassination attempt.
But FBI chief Christopher Wray told US lawmakers on Wednesday that there was some doubt “about whether the injury to his ear was a bullet or shrapnel.”
Following the new statement from the FBI — which Trump has long accused of being part of a “deep state” plotting against him — the Republican posted on his Truthout social platform: “I think this is the best apology I’ve ever received from Director Wray, but it is fully accepted!”
Earlier on Friday he posted a letter from his former White House doctor, which said the wound was almost certainly caused by a gunshot.
“There is absolutely no evidence that this was anything other than a bullet,” Ronny Jackson, a Republican congressman from Texas, wrote on Truth Social.
According to authorities, two people attending the rally were seriously injured in the attack and a 50-year-old Pennsylvania firefighter was shot and killed. The gunman was killed by a US Secret Service sniper.
Since the shooting, Trump has made the attack a key part of his campaign, telling a crowd in Michigan that he “took a bullet for democracy.”
At the Republican National Convention, where he was declared the party’s nominee for president, Trump described the attack as “God is with me.”
And many of the former president’s supporters at Trump rallies have begun wearing bandages over their right ears, a reference to the attack.
On Thursday, Trump also refuted Ray’s comments and accused him of political bias.
“Unfortunately, the bullet grazed my ear and it hit hard. There was no glass or shrapnel in it,” he said.
A New York Times investigation published Friday said that “a detailed analysis of bullet marks, footage, photographs and audio clearly shows that Mr. Trump was hit by the first of eight bullets fired by the gunman.”
Trump’s campaign has not released any medical reports or statements from his current doctor, but has only quoted Jackson — a former White House physician and staunch political ally of the former president.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
