FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Wednesday that it was not clear whether former President Donald Trump was shot or hit by shrapnel when a gunman opened fire at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.
The FBI is investigating the July 13 shooting, which killed one rally-goer and seriously injured two others before the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead by the Secret Service.
Trump was rushed off stage with a bloodied ear. He said that night that he was "shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear." He said he heard "a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin" in a post on his Truth Social platform.
A week after the shooting, the Trump campaign released a doctor's note from Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson—who had served as Trump's White House physician—that said Trump sustained a gunshot wound to his right ear that was "less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear." Trump is "doing well, and he is recovering as expected," Jackson said.
But on Wednesday, Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee that it is not yet certain if Trump's injury was caused by a bullet or shrapnel.
"To the best of your understanding, how close did the assassin's bullet come to killing President Donald Trump?" California Rep. Kevin Kiley asked Wray.
Wray replied that his understanding was that either a bullet or a piece of shrapnel "is what grazed [Trump's] ear."
Later in the hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee chairman, asked Wray if all eight bullets fired by the gunman had been accounted for.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-might-not-shot-1930037 