Republican Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician with direct knowledge about former President Donald Trump’s ear wound, disputed FBI Director Christopher Wray on Friday after he previously questioned whether a bullet caused the former president’s injury.
Wray said on Wednesday that “there’s some question” on whether Trump got hit by “a bullet or shrapnel” during the July 13 assassination attempt while testifying to the House Judiciary Committee about the FBI’s handling of the incident. Jackson released a statement on Friday saying there is “absolutely no evidence” anything other than a bullet injured Trump’s upper right ear.
“During the Congressional Hearing two days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that it could be a bullet, shrapnel, or glass,” Jackson wrote. “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.”
Jackson said he has treated many gunshot wounds throughout his 20-year career as an emergency medicine physician in the U.S. Navy and as a combat physician in Iraq. He wrote in his assessment that he can “completely concur” with the initial assessment and treatment provided to Trump at Butler Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for a gunshot wound to the ear.
Wray testified to the House Judiciary Committee that Trump’s would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, used a semiautomatic AR-15-style rifle with a collapsible stock during the shooting. Trump exited the rally with blood dripping down his face from his upper right ear.
“I think with respect to former President Trump there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that, you know, that hit his ear,” Wray testified during the Wednesday hearing. “As I sit here right now, I don’t know if that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, also could have landed somewhere else.”
A photograph taken by The New York Times’ Doug Mills showed a bullet flying directly near Trump’s head just moments before he began bleeding.
Crooks fired eight rounds into the crowd, killing former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore and wounding two other attendees. He climbed onto the roof of a building unoccupied by authorities located 130 feet away from the rally’s location.
The U.S. Secret Service and the FBI told lawmakers on Wednesday that authorities noticed Crooks approximately 50 minutes before Trump entered the stage. One source told senators that Crooks was spotted with a rangefinder, while others said they saw him standing on the rooftop with a firearm about 20 minutes before bullets were fired.
The incident led former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign from the agency on Tuesday following a tense hearing before the House Oversight Committee on Monday. Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin issued a joint statement on Monday following the hearing calling for her resignation, stating she “failed to provide answers” about the “stunning operational failure” that occurred during the rally.
MSNBC’s Michael Steele and Ari Melber both raised questions surrounding the details of Trump’s ear injury. Steele said on July 16 that there remain “a lot of questions” surrounding Trump’s injury, while Melber suggested the bandage is a “political quest” to gain sympathy and political clout.
MSNBC anchor Joy Reid suggested it may have been glass that injured Trump in a July 17 post on Threads.
The FBI declined to comment to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
