The FBI wants to question Donald Trump about his experience of getting nearly killed by an assassin earlier this month, with one U.S. official saying the agency has yet to receive a victim statement from the former president.
The FBI is still investigating the shooting and collecting evidence from the horrifying event they have always considered to be an attempted assassination.
The bureau’s director Christopher Wray sparked a firestorm on Wednesday when he testified to lawmakers on Capitol Hill that there are still ‘some question’ about whether the former president was struck with a bullet or shrapnel, and the subsequent statement sought to clarify that remark.
But Trump was quick to refute that he was hit by shrapnel, claiming he was struck by ‘a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.’
‘There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. 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!,’ Trump posted on his Truth Social.
The FBI still has questions over whether Trump was struck by shrapnel or by a bullet, but the former president has railed against that, saying he surely was hit by a bullet
The former president’s campaign also railed against the notion that Trump was struck by shrapnel as opposed to a slug.
‘Anyone who believes this conspiracy bullsh*t is either mentally deficient or willfully peddling falsehoods for political reasons,’ Trump campaign adviser Steven Cheung told CNN.
During the hearing Wednesday with Wray, the director responded to questions about the ‘assassin’s bullet’ saying, ‘My understanding is that either it or some shrapnel is what, you know, grazed his ear.’
Wray also testified that whatever it was that hit Trump came extremely close to killing the 45th president.
There were also plenty of other jaw-dropping revelations during the congressional hearing, including what 20-year-old shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was up to immediately before he opened fire.
Donald Trump’s would-be assassin Crooks searched online ‘how far’ Lee Harvey Oswald was from John F. Kennedy when he shot him, the FBI director revealed in stunning testimony to Congress.
Wray confirmed the FBI had recovered three ‘explosive devices’ in possession of Crooks
FBI Director Christopher Wray also told lawmakers the 20-year-old gunman flew a drone 200 yards from the stage just two hours before he opened fire in Butler, Pennsylvania, and had three explosives in his car.
The bombshell revelations from the bureau’s chief give more insight into Crooks’ preparation before he shot the former president, including his online research on the sniper that took out JFK in 1963.
Wray said Crooks had been ‘interested in public figures’ and ‘somewhere around July 6 or so he became very focused on former President Trump and his rally.’
The director said an analysis of Crooks’ laptop revealed he had searched on Google on July 6 ‘how far away was Oswald from Kennedy.’ It was the same day he registered to attend the Butler rally.
Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed former President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
In this handout, American Marxist and former US Marine Lee Harvey Oswald (1939 – 1963) in a mug shot after he was arrested for assassinating President John F Kennedy in Dallas, 23rd November 1963
Crooks was flying a drone above the rally site two hours before the shooting and just 200 yards away from the stage, Wray has also revealed.
He flew the drone around 4 p.m. over the area of the rally close to ‘200 yards’ from the stage to survey the scene. Trump took the stage around 6:03 p.m., over two hours later.
The FBI has also recovered three ‘explosive devices’ in possession of Crooks.
They were ‘relatively crude devices’ but had the ability ‘to be detonated remotely,’ Wray said.
The FBI director also revealed the weapon used had a ‘collapsible stock,’ which he said ‘could explain why it might’ve been less easy for people to observe.’
Wray could not say whether Crooks carried the gun up to the roof with him before he fired the shots or had stashed it there prior. He said the gunman did not use a ladder to get onto the roof but rather some sort of ‘vertical piping.’
He said Crooks and his family owned a combined 14 guns and Crooks had visited a shooting range one day before the rally. Crooks used an AR-style weapon that had been purchased legally by his father and sold to him in October 2023.
Dramatic new footage shows law enforcement standing over the dead body of Donald Trump ‘s attempted assassin moments after he was shot dead
The FBI investigation into the assassination attempt remains ongoing.
Congress has also voted to put together a task force to investigate the shooting.
Speaker Mike Johnson indicated that it would be a bipartisan effort split evenly with Republicans and Democrats.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is also investigating the shooting.
