Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is rushed offstage during a rally on 13 July 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
- The FBI confirmed that former President Donald Trump was
hit by either a bullet or a fragment of one during an assassination attempt at
a campaign rally on 13 July. - Two rally attendees were seriously wounded, and another
was killed in the attack. The gunman was taken out by a Secret Service sniper. - Trump and his supporters have since incorporated the
attack into his campaign narrative.
Former US president Donald Trump was indeed hit by an
assassin’s bullet or a fragment of one, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
said Friday, putting to rest questions over the nature of the Republican
candidate’s wounding at a campaign rally this month.
“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a
bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the
deceased subject’s rifle,” the FBI said in a statement.
Trump’s right ear was covered in blood on 13 July after he
was injured during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
The FBI deemed the assault – in which a gunman fired eight
bullets from outside the event’s security perimeter – an assassination attempt.
But FBI chief Christopher Wray told US lawmakers on
Wednesday that there was some doubt as to “whether or not it’s a bullet or
shrapnel that, you know, that hit his ear.”
Following the new statement from the FBI – which Trump has
long alleged is part of a “deep state” conspiring against him – the
Republican posted on his Truth Social platform: “I assume that’s the best
apology that we’ll get from Director Wray, but it is fully accepted!”
Earlier Friday, he posted a letter from his former White
House doctor saying the wound was almost certainly due to a bullet.
“There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything
other than a bullet,” wrote Ronny Jackson, now a Republican congressman
from Texas, on Truth Social.
Two rally attendees were seriously wounded in the attack,
and a 50-year-old Pennsylvania firefighter was shot dead, according to
officials. The gunman was killed by a US Secret Service sniper.
Since the shooting, Trump has made the attack a key part of
his campaign pitch, telling a crowd in Michigan that he “took a bullet for
democracy.”
This combination of pictures created on 18 July 2024 shows Arizona delegate Stacey Goodman wearing a gauze patch over her ear in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 17 July 2024, a delegate wearing a bandage on his ear, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 17 July 2024, a Texas delegate Jackson Carpenter wearing a bandage on his ear, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 17 July 2024 and Arizona National Committeewoman elect Liz Harris (R) puting a patch over her ear at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 17 July 2024 in solidarity with US former President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. (Jim Watson and Patrick T. Fallon/AFP)
At the Republican National Convention where he was anointed
the party’s nominee for president, Trump said he had “God on my side”
as he described the attack.
And at Trump rallies, many of the former president’s
supporters have taken to wearing bandages on their right ears, a reference to
the attack.
On Thursday, Trump had also denied Wray’s comments and
accused him of political partisanship.
He said:
It was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel.
A New York Times investigation published Friday said “a
detailed analysis of bullet trajectories, footage, photos and audio… strongly
suggests Mr Trump was grazed by the first of eight bullets fired by the
gunman.”
Trump’s campaign has not released any medical reports or
statements from his current physician, instead quoting Jackson – a former White
House physician who is a staunch political ally of the ex-president.
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