Trump Was Struck by Bullet, FBI Finds
Conclusion comes after nearly two weeks of questions about cause of ear injury during assassination attempt
The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2024
WASHINGTON—Former President Donald Trump was struck with a bullet during an assassination attempt at a western Pennsylvania campaign rally, the FBI said Friday, following nearly two weeks of speculation about what caused a bloody injury to his right ear.
“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 bureau said in a statement seeking to dispel conflicting accounts of the July 13 shooting. FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers earlier this week that officials were still analyzing evidence to determine what hit Trump: a bullet, shrapnel, glass or something else.
Trump grew irate with what he saw as Wray’s suggestion during Wednesday’s congressional hearing that he might not have been hit by a bullet. Trump insisted he felt the bullet ripping through his skin, and cast his survival as an act of God.
Hours before the FBI’s announcement Friday night, Trump again castigated Wray on his Truth Social platform and posted a picture of himself in which a bullet is visible whizzing toward him.
“Not that anyone doubted it, but to rid our Country of the political statement put out by the Director of the FBI … This is a picture of the bullet right after piercing my ear,” Trump wrote. The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired at least eight shots, but it isn’t clear which one hit Trump.
At an event Friday night, Trump said he had just taken off the ear bandage.
Several investigations are under way into how the 20-year-old was able to climb onto a rooftop with a clear line of sight to Trump and open fire with an AR-15 rifle. A spectator, Corey Comperatore, was killed and two other people were critically injured. A Secret Service sniper team shot back, killing Crooks.
Trump said Friday that he planned to return to the farm show grounds in Butler, Pa., the site of the assassination attempt, for a rally that would honor Comperatore and those who were hurt.
The shooting marked the Secret Service’s most stunning failure since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, leading Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign on Tuesday. Wray testified the following day before the House Judiciary Committee, giving circumspect responses to questions about Trump’s injury that drew criticism from some Republicans.
Friday’s FBI statement was the first law-enforcement account of Trump’s injuries. Authorities had earlier refused to provide details on what struck him, and Trump hasn’t released his medical records.
The FBI’s main role in the aftermath of the shooting has been to investigate the gunman’s motive, which Wray said remains unclear, as well as whether he had help from anyone else. The director said this week investigators had found no evidence of any accomplices, foreign or domestic. Investigators have also found that Crooks was interested in public figures more broadly and had used his cellphone to look for pictures of Trump, President Biden and others.
In fact, searches of the gunman’s cellphone and other electronics and interviews with hundreds of people paint only a murky portrait of a loner with few regular face-to-face contacts, Wray said. The director revealed, however, that Crooks searched Google a week before the shooting for “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy,” referring to the 1963 presidential assassination, the clearest indication yet that he had been plotting a similar attack.
Alex Leary contributed to this article.
Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com