FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that investigators aren’t sure if former President Donald Trump was hit by a bullet or shrapnel during his attempted assassination earlier this month.
Wray testified before Congress on Wednesday about the July 13 attempt on Trump’s life at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One rally attendee was killed in the shooting, while two others were injured; Trump said he was struck at the top of his ear.
“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray said in response to a question about whether all the bullets fired by the shooter had been accounted for.
“It’s conceivable, although as I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else. But I believe we’ve accounted for all of the shots in the cartridges.”
In response to Wray’s remarks, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told multiple media outlets that “Anyone who believes this conspiracy bullshit is either mentally deficient or willfully peddling falsehoods for political reasons.”
Wray also said that authorities had conducted over 400 interviews in their investigation and planned to hold “many more.”
He said FBI analysis had found that the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, searched for information online about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and flew a drone near the Butler rally site two hours before Trump’s appearance onstage.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Trump said he had been “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”
During a speech at the Republican National Convention accepting his party’s presidential nomination, Trump, wearing a dressing on his ear, recalled his brush with death in more detail.
“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 at the event on July 18.
Trump on Saturday released a note signed by Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) — a political ally whose actions during his time as a White House physician have been called into question — describing the former president’s injury and the treatment he received.
Jackson said the “bullet track produced a 2cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.” He said no sutures were necessary, but “there is still intermittent bleeding requiring a dressing to be in place.”
It was the most detail that had been shared to date about Trump’s condition and followed calls for more transparency about his injury and medical care.