The FBI said Friday that a bullet struck Donald Trump’s ear during an assassination attempt on the former president this month at a campaign rally, after the agency’s director suggested to Congress that it might have included shrapnel.
“What struck former President Trump’s ear was a bullet, either whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased’s rifle,” the FBI said in a statement.
The statement comes two days after FBI Director Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed to the role in 2017, told House lawmakers that “there’s some question as to whether or not it was a bullet or shrapnel that, you know, hit your ear.”
Wray testified about the FBI’s ongoing investigation into the attempted murder. A gunman identified as Thomas Crooks, 20, was shot and killed after opening fire from an elevated pole not far from Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which left one spectator dead and two others seriously injured.
The director’s comments before a House committee sparked widespread backlash among Republican lawmakers as well as Trump.
Trump referenced the FBI’s new statement in a social media post Friday night.
“I assume this is the best apology we will receive from Director Wray, but it is fully accepted!” he said. he wrote in Social Truth.
House Speaker Mike Johnson also criticized Wray’s testimony.
“We all saw the video, we saw the analysis, we heard from multiple sources at different angles that a bullet went through his ear. I’m not sure it matters much,” Johnson said Thursday.
Wray’s testimony came on the same day the House passed a resolution to create a bipartisan task force to examine the assassination attempt.
Before the FBI released its statement Friday night, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote a Letter to Wray urging him to revise his testimony, saying “the bullet from the assassination attempt tore through the top” of Trump’s ear and that it “should not be a point of contention.”
Graham said Friday night after the FBI statement that Wray should never have suggested otherwise.
“I’m glad the FBI confirmed what everyone knew. It was a bullet that hit President Trump. The FBI director’s statement should never have been made,” Graham wrote on X.
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