Trump Rages Against His Own FBI Director, Insisting a Bullet Hit His Ear — and the New York Times Concurs

‘No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard,’ Trump says. ‘There was no glass, there was no shrapnel.’

Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Trump wears a bandage on his ear while greeting Vance on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum July 15, 2024 at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

President Trump is railing against his handpicked FBI director, Christopher Wray — and his doctor, Congressman Ronny Jackson, is backing him up — over his comments saying that there hasn’t been a conclusive report as to whether Trump’s ear was grazed by a bullet or shrapnel.

At a House hearing Wednesday, Mr. Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, told Congress, “With respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.”

Trump, in response to Mr. Wray’s comments, posted on Truth Social, “His only focus is destroying J6 Patriots, Raiding Mar-a-Lago, and saving Radical Left Lunatics, like the ones now in D.C. burning American flags and spray painting over our great National Monuments – with zero retribution.”

“No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a “bullet wound to the ear,” and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America,” Trump said in a post.

On Friday, the doctor treating Trump’s wounded ear, Mr. Jackson, released a memo concerning Trump’s health, saying, “Based on my direct observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I completely concur with the initial assessment.”

The initial assessment of Trump’s wound, made at Butler Memorial Hospital, was that it was a “gunshot wound to right ear.”

“During the Congressional hearing two days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that it could be a bullet, shrapnel, or glass,” Mr. Jackson wrote. “There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet.”

Mr. Jackson served as Trump’s White House doctor. Yet Mr. Jackson no longer has a medical license, as it expired in 2020. He retains his American Board of Emergency Medicine certification, which is set to expire in 2025.

Despite his lack of medical license, Mr. Jackson has been monitoring Trump’s recovery, writing Friday that he “is rapidly recovering from a gunshot wound to his right ear.”

“I fully understand the global significance of this attempt on the life of the former President,” Mr. Jackson wrote. “As such, I want to reassure the American people and the rest of the world, that President Trump is doing extremely well.”

The investigation into whether Trump’s ear was struck by a bullet or by another object is ongoing and the FBI says it is examining bullet fragments and other evidence from the scene.

So far there has not been a conclusive report on what struck Trump’s ear on July 13. Yet the New York Times, a bitter critic of President Trump, conducted its own investigation, even reconstructing the scene of the assassiantion attempt. According to the Times’ report, the question of whether it was a bullet or something else is important, but not central to the ongoing criminal investigation surrounding the assassination attempt.

The Times’ 3-D model of the rally where the shooting occurred helped find that the bullet traveled in a straight line from the gunman to the bleachers, grazing Trump along the way. “An absence of medical records or official accounts has stirred confusion,” the newspaper said, “but a Times video and trajectory analysis indicates a bullet, not debris, wounded the former president.”


The New York Sun

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