FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that investigators are unsure whether former President Donald Trump was hit by a bullet or shrapnel during his assassination attempt earlier this month.
Wray testified before Congress on Wednesday about the July 13 attempt on Trump’s life at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One meeting participant was killed in the shooting, while two others were injured; Trump said he was hit on the top of his ear.
“There’s some question as to whether or not it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray said in response to a question about whether all the bullets fired by the shooter had been taken into account.
“It is conceivable, although sitting here now I don’t know whether that bullet not only caused the grazing, but could also have ended up somewhere else. But I believe we took into account all the shots in the cartridges.”
Wray said authorities had conducted more than 400 interviews in their investigation and planned to conduct “many more.”
He also said an FBI analysis found that the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, searched online for information about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and flew a drone near the scene two hours before Trump appeared on stage. Butler meeting flew.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Trump said said he had been “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”
During a speech at the Republican National Convention accepting his party’s presidential nomination, Trump, with a bandage around his ear, recalled his brush with death in more detail.
“I heard a loud whooshing sound and felt something hit my right ear very, very hard. I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet,” he said at the July 18 event.
Trump on Saturday released a note signed by Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) – a political ally and physician whose actions during his time as a physician in the White House questioned – detailing the former president’s injury and the treatment he received.
Jackson said the “bullet trajectory caused a 2cm wide wound that extended to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.” He said no stitches were needed, but “there is still periodic bleeding that requires a bandage.”
It was the most detail yet shared about Trump’s condition and followed calls for more transparency about his injury and medical care.