FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that a registered Republican attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, a convicted felon, on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania ), he may have been hit by shrapnel rather than a bullet.
“For former President Trump, there are some questions about whether it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray told the House Judiciary Committee.
“I don’t know now if that bullet would have landed somewhere other than a scratch.”
Shrapnel is defined as “small pieces of metal that fly into the air when a bomb or similar weapon explodes and is intended to harm people.”
The Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Department briefed reporters on the scene immediately after the incident, saying Trump was hit by fragments of a teleprompter. Several law enforcement officers standing near him were hit by debris.
Donald Trump was reportedly hit with shards of glass instead of bullets after a shooting at a scheduled rally in Pennsylvania. According to law enforcement, a bullet struck the teleprompter and Trump was grazed by shards of glass,” the New Pittsburgh Courier reported the day after the shooting.
Early briefings caused confusion and Wray’s testimony has yet to be clarified. Snopes claimed that Trump must have been hit by a bullet before Wray testified.
Trump’s ear appeared to be grazed by an object, but as the FBI director made clear, it’s unclear what that object was. Trump claimed he was shot in the ear at the Republican convention and wore a prominent white bandage around his ear, and attendees followed suit and wore large white bandages around their ears.
No licensed and/or treating medical personnel confirmed that he was shot as he claimed. However, Richard Goldinger, the district attorney in Butler County, a red, rural district in western Pennsylvania, told reporters that Trump was grazed by the gun.
One spectator died and two others were seriously injured. The FBI is still trying to determine the shooter’s motive.
“We don’t know the motive. That’s obviously one of the core questions of our investigation, and it’s very frustrating to us that many of the common low-hanging fruit we found don’t provide significant clues about his motivations,” Ray said.
Republicans accuse the Secret Service of neglecting its duty to protect presidential candidates. However, after Trump incited the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the Secret Service deleted text messages from Jan. 5 and 6 at the request of regulators.
The shooter’s motive remains unclear. Accounts of him vary, with some saying he was bullied and shy, while others say he was a conservative who liked to take the conservative perspective in class and that his friends all wore Trump hats. He is wearing an advertising T-shirt Demolish the rancha YouTube channel for gun enthusiasts.
A profile in The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted classmate Max R. Smith recalling political statements made by Tom Crooks. “He’s definitely a conservative. It makes me wonder why he would pursue an assassination attempt on a conservative candidate.
Gary LaFree, a criminologist at the University of Maryland who tracked such violence from 1970 to 2020 in the Terrorism Database, told Reuters that political violence began to rise in 2016, “around the time of Trump’s death.” When Trump first ran for president.”
Most Democratic lawmakers and President Biden have repeatedly pushed for a ban Assault weapons. 220 Republican House members and 49 senators have consistently opposed gun safety. A common theme in Republican candidate ads is posing with assault weapons, sometimes even around Christmas trees, with their children holding assault weapons.
Whatever hit Trump received, it occurred during an assassination attempt, which is unacceptable in a free country. While the location chosen by the Trump campaign presented obvious logistical challenges for the Secret Service and local law enforcement, eyewitness accounts of seeing the gunman on a rooftop before firing into the crowd are chilling and illustrate the impact of security lapses on a The rally resulted in tragedy. Gore’s family members were injured and two others were in serious condition.
Watch Ray’s full testimony here: