WASHINGTON: Former US President Donald Trump was indeed hit by an assassin's bullet or a fragment of it, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said, ending questions about the nature of the injuries the Republican candidate sustained at a campaign rally this month.
“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, either whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject's rifle,” the FBI said in a statement released Friday.
Trump's right ear was covered in blood on July 13 after he was injured during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
The FBI considered the assault, in which a gunman fired eight bullets from outside the event's security perimeter, to be attempted murder.
But FBI chief Christopher Wray told US lawmakers on Wednesday there was some question about “whether it was a bullet or shrapnel that, you know, struck 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 Social Truth Platform: “I guess that's the best apology we'll ever get from Director Wray, but we fully accept it!”
Earlier on Friday, he released a letter from his former White House physician saying the wound was almost certainly caused by a bullet.
“There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet,” wrote Ronny Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas, in Social Truth.
According to authorities, two protesters were seriously injured in the attack and a 50-year-old Pennsylvania firefighter was shot dead. The gunman was killed by a U.S. Secret Service sniper.
Since the shooting, Trump has made the attack a key part of his campaign speech, telling a crowd in Michigan that he “took a bullet for democracy.”
At the Republican National Convention, where he was anointed the party's nominee for president, Trump said he had “God on my side” when describing the attack.
And at Trump's campaign rallies, many of the former president's supporters have taken to wearing bandages on their right ears, in reference to the attack.
On Thursday, Trump also denied Wray's comments and accused him of political partisanship.
“Unfortunately, it was a bullet that hit my ear and it hit me very hard. There was no glass or shrapnel,” he explained.
TO New York Times The investigation released Friday said that “a detailed analysis of bullet trajectories, images, photos and audio strongly suggest that Trump was grazed by the first of eight bullets fired by the gunman.”
The Trump campaign has not released any medical reports or statements from his current doctor, instead citing Jackson, a former White House physician who is a staunch political ally of the former president.
