FBI confirms Trump was struck by bullet during assassination attempt

Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump's near-assassination, the FBI confirmed on Friday (July 26) that it was indeed a bullet that struck the former president's ear, moving to clear up conflicting accounts about what caused the former president's injuries after a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally.

"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 agency said in a statement.

The one-sentence statement from the FBI marked the most definitive law enforcement account of Trump's injuries and followed ambiguous comments earlier in the week from Director Christopher Wray that appeared to cast doubt on whether Trump had actually been hit by a bullet.

Conspiracy theories

The comment drew fury from Trump and his allies and further stoked conspiracy theories that have flourished on both sides of the political aisle amid a dearth of information following the July 13 attack.

Up until now, federal law enforcement agents involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, had refused to provide information about what caused Trump's injuries. Trump's campaign has also declined to release medical records from the hospital where he was first treated or to make the doctors there available for questions.

Updates have instead come either from Trump himself or from Trump's former White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, a staunch ally who now represents Texas in Congress. Though Jackson has been treating Trump since the night of the attack, he has come under considerable scrutiny and is not Trump's primary care physician.

Tension between Trump and FBI

The FBI's apparent reluctance to immediately vouch for the former president's version of events has also raised fresh tension between the Republican nominee and the nation's premier federal law enforcement agency, which he could soon exert control over once again. Trump and his supporters have for years accused federal law enforcement of being weaponised against him, something Wray has consistently denied.

Speaking at an event later on Friday (July 26) in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump drew boos from the crowd when he described the suggestion that he may have been struck by glass or shrapnel instead of a bullet.

"Did you see the FBI today apologised?" he asked. "It just never ends with these people. ... We accept their apology."

Trump appeared on Friday for the first time without a bandage on his right ear. Photographs and video showed no sign of continued bleeding, and no distinct holes or gashes.

Questions about Trump’s wound

Questions about the extent and nature of Trump's wound began immediately after the attack, as his campaign and law enforcement officials declined to answer questions about his condition or the treatment he received after Trump narrowly escaped death in an attempted assassination by a gunman with a high-powered rifle.

Those questions have persisted despite photographs showing the trace of a projectile speeding past Trump's head as well as Trump's teleprompter glass intact after the shooting, and the account Trump himself gave in a Truth Social post within hours of the shooting that he had been "shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear."

"I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin," he wrote.

Scene recounted

Days later, in a speech accepting the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump recounted the scene in detail, while wearing a large gauze bandage over his right ear.

"I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard, on my right ear. I said to myself, 'Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet,'" he said.

"If I had not moved my head at that very last instant," Trump said, "the assassin's bullet would have perfectly hit its mark, and I would not be here tonight."

But the first medical account of Trump's condition didn't come until a full week after the shooting, when Jackson released his first letter last Saturday evening. In it, he said the bullet that struck Trump had "produced a 2 cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear." He also revealed Trump had received a CT scan at the hospital.

Federal law enforcement involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, had declined to confirm that account. And Wray's testimony offered apparently conflicting answers on the issue.

"There's some question about whether or not it's a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear," Wray said, before he seemed to suggest it was indeed a bullet.

"I don't know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else," he said.

FBI’s statement

On Thursday, the FBI sought to clarify matters with a statement affirming that the shooting was an "attempted assassination of former President Trump which resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims."

The FBI also said on Thursday (July 25) that its Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to examine bullet fragments and other evidence from the scene.

(With agency inputs)