It’s been more than a week now since former President Donald Trump was targetted in a bona fide assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania campaign rally — but things just seem to be getting messier with each passing day surrounding the whole ordeal.
The shooter, who was “neutralized” on the scene, has since been identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Crooks was positioned on a nearby rooftop, where he fired multiple rounds from an AR-15 rifle.
Americans watched with bated breath as Donald Trump suddenly slung his right hand up to his right ear. Within seconds, Secret Service agents were tackling the ex-president to the ground. After just a few moments, Trump stood back up with his face bloodied, fisting pumping, and screaming, “Fight, fight, fight!” at his crowd.
The former president was quickly whisked away from the event and rushed to a nearby hospital. For several minutes, Trump’s condition hung in the balance for Americans.
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Ultimately, ex-President Trump was left shaken, but largely unharmed, as reports confirmed that only the top of his right ear had sustained any damage and was the cause of the blood smeared across his face.
Almost immediately, questions began to arise about what exactly hit Donald Trump in the ear. Many reputable publications began to report that Trump was not shot but instead was hit with broken glass from his teleprompter. However, Trump himself was quick to put out a statement saying that it was, in fact, an AR-15 bullet that grazed the top of his ear.
As it stands, Snopes still maintains that Donald Trump was injured by a bullet, and not by broken glass.
However, that has done little in the way of bringing the questions and speculations to a heel, and the mere idea of people thinking that he wasn’t actually shot does not seem to be setting well with the former president — leading Trump’s old White House doctor to release a rather dramatic letter in what appears to be a desperate effort to settle the score.
Today, Donald Trump appeared without a bandage on his right ear for the first time since the Pennsylvania shooting during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
This new sighting of a bandage-less Trump comes hot on the heels of FBI Director Christopher Wray’s suggesting during a hearing earlier this week that the federal agency still has “some questions” about what hit the former president and damaged his ear.
Now, Texas Republican Congressman and former Trump White House doctor Ronny Jackson has issued a direct rebuke to Wray’s statement and speculations, claiming that he has been “monitoring” Donald’s recovery since the assassination attempt and adds that it’s irrefutable that the former president was struck by “anything other than a bullet.”
“During the Congressional Hearing two days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that it could be a bullet, shrapnel, or glass,” Jackson wrote in a letter he posted to Truth Social today.
“There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet. Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.”
Drawing on his past experience as a combat physician in the U.S. Navy, Jackson cited Butler Memorial Hospital’s report, where the former president was taken directly after the shooting, writing that the facility “evaluated and treated [Trump] for a ‘Gunshot Wound to the Right Ear.'”
“Based on my direct observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I completely concur with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the doctors and nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the shooting,” the letter reads.
Jackson concluded his letter with an update on Donald’s condition, stating that the former president is “rapidly recovering.”
Trump personally lashed out at Wray following the congressional hearing, writing on his Truth Social platform, “FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasn’t sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively ‘uneventful’ – Wrong! The hospital called it a ‘bullet wound to the ear,’ and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!”
The FBI continues to analyze the Trump assassination attempt, as well as what shrapnel that was found on and around the stage in an effort to officially determine what grazed the former president’s ear.
The Bureau released a statement in the wake of the shooting: “This was a heinous attack and the FBI is devoting enormous resources to learn everything possible about the shooter and what led to his act of violence. The FBI’s Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing.”
Featured image via screen capture
