Trump and Former White House Doctor Say Bullet, Not Shrapnel, Hit Ear During Shooting

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday rebuffed claims that glass or shrapnel struck his ear during an attempted assassination earlier this month at a Pennsylvania rally as his former White House doctor said a day later that the injury was caused by a gunshot wound.

He was responding to a comment made by FBI Director Christopher Wray during a House hearing earlier this week in which the FBI director said he could not rule out that it was shrapnel and not a bullet that struck the former president’s ear.

“No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel,” former President Trump wrote. “The hospital called it a ‘bullet wound to the ear,’ and that is what it was.”

During his congressional testimony on Wednesday, Mr. Wray provided more details of the investigation into the shooting that targeted the former president in Butler, Pennsylvania, as well as details about the suspected shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks.

“I think with respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Mr. Wray said, adding that he wasn’t sure.

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Video footage of the shooting shows the former president reaching for his ear after loud popping noises could be heard. He is then seen ducking to the ground as Secret Service agents rush to surround him. As he gets up, former President Trump’s ear can be seen bloodied, and streaks of blood can be seen across his face.

Butler Memorial Hospital, the facility that treated former President Trump, has not issued a public statement on the injury. The Epoch Times contacted the hospital for comment on Friday but didn’t receive a reply by publication time.

Mr. Jackson, who performed an evaluation earlier this month on former President Trump, said the Butler hospital treated him for a “gunshot wound to the right ear,” citing the former president’s medical records.

Citing his work as an emergency medicine physician for more than 20 years in the U.S. Navy, he wrote, “I have treated many gunshot wounds in my career,” according to the letter. “Based on my direct observations of the injury … and my significant expertise evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I completely concur with the initial assessment” provided by doctors and nurses on the day of the incident that the ear injury was caused by a bullet.

In a previously issued letter on July 20, Mr. Jackson wrote that he evaluated the former president, and that the “bullet track produced a 2 [centimeter] wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.”

“There was initially significant bleeding, followed by marked swelling of the entire upper ear. The swelling has since resolved, and the wound is beginning to granulate and heal properly,” he said.

Mr. Jackson, who had served in the Trump White House, said he had provided daily evaluation and treatment of the 45th president’s wound since the shooting. He said no sutures were required, but he also remarked that due to the “highly vascular nature of the ear, there is still intermittent bleeding requiring a dressing to be in place.”

“He will have further evaluations, including a comprehensive hearing exam, as needed,” Mr. Jackson added.

Since the shooting, former President Trump has made a number of public appearances. Initially, he had a large white bandage on the injured ear, while in later events, he had a smaller Band-Aid-like bandage on the ear.

The former president recounted the assassination attempt to a Republican National Convention (RNC) audience last week in Milwaukee, saying that he was only alive and at the RNC “by the grace of Almighty God.”

“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet.’”

In the assassination attempt, one rally-goer was killed and two others were injured, officials said. The Secret Service confirmed that one of its sniper teams shot and killed Mr. Crooks, the suspect, soon after he allegedly fired the shots.

The FBI director said in his testimony that Mr. Crooks, 20, flew a drone in the vicinity of the Butler rally two hours before it started, had explosive devices, and also performed a Google search on Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Reuters contributed to this report.