Trump Shooting Investigations: Visual and Audio Analysis ... FBI Wants to Quiz Trump ... FBI director says there is 'some question' whether Trump was hit with a bullet or shrapnel
An absence of medical records or official accounts has stirred confusion, but a Times video and trajectory analysis indicates a bullet, not debris, wounded the former president.
By Malachy BrowneDevon Lum and Alexander Cardia
Nearly two weeks after the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump, there’s still no official report from the Trump campaign or from state or federal governments about what caused the wound on his right ear.
This lack of clarity has left the issue unsettled and fueled speculation online about whether he was hit by a bullet or shrapnel — or perhaps something else.
But a detailed analysis of bullet trajectories, footage, photos and audio by The New York Times strongly suggests Mr. Trump was grazed by the first of eight bullets fired by the gunman, Thomas Crooks. Subsequent bullets wounded two rally goers and killed a third.
What has helped stoke confusion is that Mr. Trump himself has said he was hit by a bullet, but his campaign has not released any official medical reports, nor has Mr. Trump’s current physician weighed in.
Instead, the campaign has posted a memo from Mr. Trump’s former White House physician, Ronny L. Jackson, now a Texas congressman and outspoken ally of the former president, that says he was struck by a bullet on his right ear.
The Secret Service, which was responsible for the security at the event, has declined to comment.
The F.B.I. said it was examining numerous metal fragments found near the stage to determine whether a bullet — or pieces of it — had grazed Mr. Trump’s head, bloodying his ear.
A key piece of evidence in The Times’s analysis is a live video feed that captures Mr. Trump’s reaction as the first three gunshots are fired. The crack of the bullets are heard as they pass the microphone that Mr. Trump speaks into. Almost a second elapses between the first and second shots.
During this brief interim, Mr. Trump starts reaching toward his ear, according to footage and audio of the event analyzed by The Times and Rob Maher, an audio forensics expert at Montana State University.
“He flinches, and his right hand already starts reaching for his right ear during that time between the first audible shot and the second audible shot,” Mr. Maher said.
Mr. Trump’s fingers are bloodied as soon as he touches his ear, as seen in a picture taken by Doug Mills, a veteran Times photographer.
After clipping Mr. Trump, that first bullet appears to pass him and strike bleachers off to his left, where scores of his supporters are standing, the analysis suggests.
A puff of debris captured in a video snippet appeared to show the impact point of that shot — right beside a rally attendee, David Dutch.
“The puff visible at the back of the bleachers appears at the time of the first shot,” Mr. Maher said.
Mr. Dutch appears to have been injured by the second shot, which was fired along a similar trajectory. He winces as it rings out, and then crouches down as the third shot passes.
Another video indicates that the third bullet hit a crane near Mr. Dutch.
A 3-D model of the rally grounds produced by The Times shows the positions of the shooter and Mr. Trump, and the point where the first bullet hit the bleachers.
The model and the trajectory analysis show that the bullet traveled in a straight line from the gunman to the bleachers, clipping Mr. Trump on its path. This suggests the bullet was not deflected by first striking an object that would have then sprayed Mr. Trump with debris.
By Helmuth Rosales
Mr. Crooks appears to have fired eight gunshots in total — a burst of three followed by a burst of five — before he was killed by Secret Service snipers. Investigators found eight shell casings around Mr. Crooks’s body on the warehouse roof, Col. Christopher Paris of the Pennsylvania State Police said in a congressional hearing on Tuesday.
One bullet injured James Copenhaver, 74, in the abdomen. Mr. Copenhaver was standing just a few feet from Mr. Dutch.
A further video analysis shows that Corey Comperatore, 50, a father of two and volunteer firefighter, was shot in the head and killed most likely in the second volley of bullets fired by Mr. Crooks, a theory first posited on X by the journalists Moshe Schwartz and Oliver Alexander.
A video shows Mr. Comperatore standing upright and apparently filming or taking photographs with his cellphone as the first three bullets are fired. When the second volley is fired, a baseball hat resembling that worn by Mr. Comperatore is seen flying through the air.
What appears to have put Mr. Comperatore in the line of fire is that the gunman may have been adjusting his aim lower as Secret Service agents protectively took Mr. Trump to the ground.
The security lapses that permitted Mr. Crooks to fire eight rounds unimpeded, at least three of which came close to seriously wounding Mr. Trump, have become the subject of an active congressional investigation. On Tuesday, the director of the Secret Service tendered her resignation.
Kate Kelly, Riley Mellen, Helmuth Rosales and Adam Goldman contributed reporting.
FBI investigators have asked to interview Donald Trump as they determine whether a bullet or a piece of shrapnel hit the former president during an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
On Wednesday, while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that “there is some question about whether or not it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.”
According to a Thursday report in The New York Times, citing the FBI and a federal law enforcement official, the agency is keen to talk to Trump in order to get a more detailed version of events surrounding the incident and, according to the official, a more complete record of his injury, the Times notes.
It comes as the FBI confirmed that it was examining a number of metal fragments found littered around the stage at the time of the shooting to help determine if a piece of shrapnel was responsible for Trump’s bloodied ear, the Times report noted.
Investigators recovered eight shell casings from the roof where the shooter, Matthew Thomas Crooks, fired at Trump—but it is unclear if any bullets have been recovered. “There’s a chance we can never find them, ” Michael Harrigan, a former FBI special agent who ran the bureau firearms training unit in Quantico, Virginia, previously told the Daily Beast.
Trump and his campaign have since pushed back hard on the idea that anything other than a bullet hit the former president on July 13.
“No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Thursday evening. “There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a ‘bullet wound to the ear,’ and that is what it was.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment from The Daily Beast regarding the FBI’s proposed interview. It is unclear when the FBI asked Trump for the interview, but the former president insisted on Thursday night “the FBI never even checked” what hit his ear at the rally. The FBI told the Times that the bureau’s shooting reconstruction team “continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing.”
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Trump’s former White House physician, released a statement on Saturday confirming he “sustained a gunshot wound to the right ear,” which produced a “2 cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.”
However, Trump’s official treatment record from Butler Memorial Hospital has not been released.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) also pushed back Thursday on the notion that Trump may have been wounded by shrapnel. “We’ve all seen the video, we’ve seen the analysis, we’ve heard it from multiple sources in different angles that a bullet went through his ear. I’m not sure it matters that much,” he told NBC.
Answers over the apparent culprit of Trump’s ear wound appears to be low on the priority scale of the FBI.
“The bureau’s priority is finding whether anybody helped the shooter and eliminating any ongoing threat,” Harrigan told the Times.
“From an investigative standpoint, knowing what happened to the president’s ear doesn’t really matter.”
Trump previously called on Wray to resign for stating that his interactions with President Joe Biden were “uneventful and unremarkable”—insisting that the report written by Special Counsel Robert Hur, the Justice Department attorney assigned to investigate Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, proved the opposite. Trump doubled down on this call on Thursday night.
Hur’s report called Biden a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” but said his actions did not warrant criminal charges.
Now FBI Director Christopher Wray cast some doubt on this Wednesday when he said before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee that it was not clear whether Trump was struck by a bullet or shrapnel at Trump's July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
"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, hit his ear," Wray said.
His comment was in response to a question from the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who asked where the eight shots fired by gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks went.
Wray added, "So it's conceivable, although as I sit here right now I don't know whether that bullet, in addition to, you know, causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else. But I believe we've accounted for all of the shots in the cartridges."
Jordan followed up, "It's my understanding that the very first one was the one that hit the president. The very first shot. Or is that not accurate?"
"As I sit here right now, I don't know the answer to that. I believe we know the answer to that. I just don't have it in front of me," Wray responded.
The gunman — who was shot dead by the Secret Service —opened fire from a rooftop just minutes into Trump's July 13 rally, leaving the former president's ear bloodied, one attendee dead, and two others injured.
When asked for comment Thursday regarding Wray's testimony about there being a question of whether Trump was hit by a bullet or shrapnel, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Business Insider: "Anyone who believes this conspiracy bullshit is either mentally deficient or willfully peddling falsehoods for political reasons."
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, appointed Wray as FBI director in 2017.
The FBI told BI in a statement that since the day of the attack the agency "has been consistent and clear that the shooting was an attempted assassination of former President Trump which resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims."
"FBI Director Wray provided extensive congressional testimony on Wednesday about the FBI's investigation. 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," the agency said.
Meanwhile, firearms expert Peter Diaczuk told BI that whether a bullet or shrapnel struck Trump, both would have done a similar amount of damage to his ear and that the former president would not have known the difference.
"They're both going to rip the ear apart. They're both passing by at a relatively high rate of speed," said Diaczuk, a professor of forensic science at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Additionally, Diaczuk told BI that it's most likely that it was, in fact, a bullet that hit Trump's ear instead of shrapnel.
In order for a bullet to break up and cause a fragment, "it's got to hit something substantial to disrupt its integrity," Diaczuk explained.
"And from what I saw — clearly, I don't have as much information as people who have been to the scene looking at things — but from what I saw the day of and the day after, was that it was a clear line of sight between the sniper's nest and the podium," said Diaczuk. "And if that's the case, then there's nothing to cause the breakup of a bullet."
"I don't see any indication of an intervening object to cause the bullet to fragment," he said.
Republican Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who served as Trump's White House doctor, said in a previously released note that the former president "sustained a gunshot wound" that caused "significant bleeding" and "marked swelling" of his entire upper ear.
"The bullet passed, coming less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear," the memo read. "The bullet track produced a 2 cm wide wound that extended down from the cartilaginous surface of the ear."
This story was updated to include a statement from the FBI.
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The bureau is assessing what caused the former president’s wound during an assassination attempt. The question has turned political.
By Adam Goldman and Glenn Thrush
The F.B.I. is examining numerous metal fragments found near the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., to determine whether an assassin’s bullet — or other potential sources of debris — grazed former President Donald J. Trump’s head, bloodying his ear, according to the F.B.I. and a federal law enforcement official.
The bureau has asked to interview Mr. Trump as part of its broader investigation, hoping to provide insights into the shooting and possibly a more complete record of his injury, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the continuing inquiry.
Unanswered questions about the object that struck the Republican nominee for president have lingered since the shooting on July 13, with Mr. Trump claiming that he was struck by a bullet — and casting his survival as an act of divine intervention.
F.B.I. officials have been more circumspect, citing the need to analyze the evidence before determining what struck Mr. Trump — a bullet, metal shard or something else.
The bureau’s shooting reconstruction team “continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing,” the F.B.I. said in a statement on Thursday. In addition to injuring Mr. Trump, the gunman, Thomas Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa., shot three rally attendees, one fatally.
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, did not answer whether the bureau had asked to review the former president’s medical records after the incident, but Mr. Trump has not released them publicly.
F.B.I. officials view the identification of the projectile as important, but not a central focus of a sprawling criminal investigation into the actions of the gunman. They are deeply interested in Mr. Crooks’s rationale or any indication that he might have had an accomplice or other help. So far, they have not found a motive nor a conspirator.
“The bureau’s priority is finding whether anybody helped the shooter and eliminating any ongoing threat,” said Michael Harrigan, a former F.B.I. special agent who ran the bureau firearms training unit in Quantico, Va.
“From an investigative standpoint, knowing what happened to the president’s ear doesn’t really matter,” he added.
It matters a great deal from a political standpoint.
“With respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, told Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday.
That statement prompted a fierce backlash and continued Republican attacks on Mr. Wray.
“It’s shocking Christopher Wray doesn’t know what the facts are, but that probably says more about his job performance — or lack thereof — than anything else,” Mr. Cheung said.
Speaker Mike Johnson told NBC on Thursday: “We’ve all seen the video, we’ve seen the analysis, we’ve heard it from multiple sources in different angles that a bullet went through his ear.”
“There’s a lot of frustration and concern about the leadership with these agencies,” Mr. Johnson added.
The F.B.I. said in a statement that the bureau “has been consistent and clear that the shooting was an attempted assassination of former President Trump, which resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims.”
It is not usual for the type of bullet that Mr. Crooks fired from his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle to tumble end over end and break apart after hitting even a small solid object. Gun experts say a fragment might, for instance, have hit a metal stanchion.
Still, a bullet could have grazed Mr. Trump’s ear, and the F.B.I. has not ruled that out. Investigators found eight rifle casings on the roof where the shooter was positioned.
It is not clear if investigators have eliminated other potential sources of debris. But bureau analysts appear to be focused on metal fragments, as opposed to glass from the teleprompter onstage. Photos of the teleprompters next to Mr. Trump show they were intact after the bullets were fired.
F.B.I. analysts are also examining still images and other electronic evidence for clues.
Gun experts said the F.B.I. could rely on trajectory analysis, a physical examination of any linked bullet and the president’s wound to possibly figure out what happened.
The bureau could also get lucky and find the former president’s DNA on a piece of a bullet. But even that would likely not establish if a fragment or the actual bullet hit his ear.
One other scenario investigators are likely to explore: that the bullet, deadly but friable, might have fragmented after skimming Mr. Trump’s ear.
“The problem you have with a bullet traveling at 3,200 feet per second is that it fragments very easily when it hits a surface before the target,” Mr. Harrigan said. “It’s going to be tough with the fragmentation to definitely say what happened. ”
Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting.
Trump’s ear wound from an assassination attempt at a rally on July 13 quickly became a symbol of solidarity for many of his supporters, and a grim reminder of political violence in the U.S.
But new comments by FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday indicated there’s much the American public still does not know about the injury. Wray suggested in congressional testimony that the wound may have been caused by shrapnel, while Trump’s former White House physician has said it was caused by a bullet.
Trump’s team has remained tight-lipped about it, refraining from publicly sharing the former President’s medical records or conducting a press briefing at the Pennsylvania hospital where he was treated. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Here’s what we know about Trump’s ear wound.
During a House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Wray provided new details about the investigation into the assassination attempt and revealed that the agency is not certain the wound was caused by a bullet.
“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” he said.
Read More: America’s Political Violence Crisis
Trump has not released his medical records
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting in Butler, Pa., Trump was treated at Butler Memorial Hospital, but his team did not share details of his wound or care. Doctors at the hospital were not made available for a press conference or questions, and Trump has not released his medical records from the treatment.
Former White House physician said it was caused by a bullet
On July 20, a week after the shooting, Trump shared a signed letter from former White House physician Ronny Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas, who released new details about the injury and claimed that the wound was caused by a gunshot wound.
In the letter, Jackson said Trump had a 2 cm-wide gunshot wound in the right ear from a high-powered rifle. “There was initially significant bleeding, followed by marked swelling of the entire upper ear,” Jackson wrote. “The swelling has since resolved, and the wound is beginning to granulate and heal properly. Based on the highly vascular nature of the ear, there is still intermittent bleeding requiring a dressing to be in place. Given the broad and blunt nature of the wound itself, no sutures were required.”
He said that Trump received a thorough evaluation—including a CT scan— at Butler Memorial Hospital, and will undergo further evaluations, including a hearing test.
Jackson slammed Wray on X after Wray’s testimony, saying it was “absolutely irresponsible” for Wray to suggest the injury may have been caused by shrapnel. “IT WAS A BULLET — I’VE SEEN THE WOUND!” Jackson wrote. “PATHETIC!!!
Jackson is a Trump ally and has come under fire in recent years after a Pentagon inspector general’s report revealed allegations that Jackson had engaged in “inappropriate conduct” as White House physician.
Trump’s descriptions of the shooting
Trump has made some comments about his experience. In a speech at the Republican convention on July 18, Trump, the Republican nominee, said that a bullet “came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life."
“I said to myself, wow, what was that, it can only be a bullet, and moved my right hand to my ear, brought it down,” he said. “The amazing thing is that prior to the shot, if I had not moved my head at that very last instant, the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark and I would not be here tonight.”
In a social media post after the rally on July 13, Trump wrote, “I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.”
In a private phone call with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that was posted online, Trump said that in the moment, the object whizzing past him at the rally felt like “the world’s largest mosquito.”
Eric Trump, the former President’s son, told CBS News that his father has referred to the injury as "the greatest earache he's ever had," but that he did not require stitches and that his hearing is fine.
Christopher Wray, the FBI director, has raised questions about whether Donald Trump was actually shot by a bullet during the assassination attempt against the former president earlier this month or whether he was instead struck by shrapnel.
During a hearing on Wednesday in Washington, before the House judiciary committee, Wray told lawmakers that it was not clear what precisely caused the injury to Trump’s ear during the shooting at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.
The burst of gunfire from a shooter on a roof with a sightline to the stage and crowd killed one rally-goer and left others wounded.
“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray testified. “As I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else.”
Shortly after the shooting, Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that he had been shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of his right ear.
“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” the former president wrote. “Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.”
After the shooting, Trump released a memo about his recovery from Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor and current Republican representative, but the former president has not allowed the medical professionals who treated him to talk publicly about his condition.
On Thursday, Jackson responded to Wray’s testimony in a post on X, calling Wray’s comments to lawmakers “absolutely irresponsible” and “politically motivated” against Trump.
“What little credibility he may have left is GONE after recklessly suggesting Trump might not have been hit from a bullet,” Jackson said.
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“It was a bullet,” he added. “I’ve seen the wound!”
Wray also testified to lawmakers on Wednesday that the shooter who had attempted to assassinate Trump, and was then shot dead himself by government snipers, had searched online for information about the 1963 assassination of former president John F Kennedy.
The gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania fired eight bullets in under six seconds before he was shot and killed by a U.S. Secret Service sniper, according to an analysis of footage from the event by two audio experts, video analysis by CBS News and sworn statements from Pennsylvania State Police.
The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, killed one rally attendee and injured two others when he opened fire from a roof near the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. A bullet also grazed Trump's ear, creating a 2-cm-wide wound, according to Rep. Ronny Jackson, Trump's former White House physician.
Former President Donald Trump salutes the crowd at the campaign rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. Evan Vucci / APIn testimony on Tuesday at a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing about the assassination attempt, Pennsylvania State Police Col. Christopher L. Paris told lawmakers that eight casings were recovered from the gunman's location.
Video and audio analysis from the shooting indicates the gunman fired eight shots. Audio experts Rob Maher of Montana State University and Steven Beck of Beck Audio Forensics told CBS News they identified 10 gunshots from the recordings of the event. The first eight rounds had similar acoustic characteristics and originated from the same location. Beck said these eight discharges, fired in approximately 5.2 seconds, were consistent with the AR-15-style rifle the shooter used.
This image shows the location of the people hit by gunfire at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. RSBN/CBS NewsThe final two gunshots were likely from law enforcement and came from two different firearms in two different locations, the audio analysis indicates. The first of these two gunshots was fired approximately 5.5 seconds after the gunman opened fire, Beck said. The gunman stopped firing immediately, indicating this bullet hit him. A final shot was fired 10 seconds later.
CBS News analysis of social media footage showed that one of the rally attendees injured in the shooting, David Dutch, fell to the floor of the bleachers after the second gunshot was fired. Another injured attendee, James Copenhaver, fell to the ground as the fourth to eighth gunshot was fired.
Cory Comperatore, a 50-year-old retired fire chief, was killed while attempting to shield his family from the gunfire, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said at a news conference following the shooting.
Gunman flew drone near site of Trump rally ahead of shooting 08:50On Tuesday, Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her position as director of the U.S. Secret Service after facing a bipartisan grilling on Capitol Hill on Monday. President Biden thanked Cheatle for her decades of public service in a White House statement.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has appointed Ronald Rowe, deputy director of the Secret Service, to serve as the acting director until a permanent replacement is chosen.
Several investigations into the circumstances surrounding the shooting are underway. In addition to the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general has opened two probes to evaluate the Secret Service's process for securing an event and determine the preparedness level of the agency's Counter Sniper Team to respond to threats. Officials said the inspector general may decide to open additional investigations as well.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced Tuesday the creation of a bipartisan task force to investigate the assassination attempt.
Mr. Biden has also ordered an independent review of the rally's security situation to determine what went wrong.
Timeline of when gunman was spotted to when shots rang out during Trump assassination attempt 04:45 MoreFox News drones provided a new perspective on the sight lines between Thomas Matthew Crooks, former President Trump and the Secret Service counter sniper teams at the fateful rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.
Fox News correspondent CB Cotton also detailed the sight lines that Crooks had when firing on Trump. A drone recreation shows that Crooks was largely concealed from Secret Service counter snipers by a large tree, though he still had an angle on the former president.
The Secret Service agent who neutralized Crooks was stationed on a building behind Trump. The drone footage shows he would have only seen part of Crooks' body at the time.
Bodycam footage from the day of the shooting shows confusion among the Secret Service agents and local police. Several officers can be seen standing around Crooks' body on the roof discussing the incident.
SECRET SERVICE EQUITY DIRECTOR SAYS DEI AGENDA IS A ‘MISSION IMPERATIVE,’ THE ‘ULTIMATE GOAL’
The officers found eight bullet casings around Crooks, a number that lines up with testimony from FBI Director Christopher Wray.
In addition to his rifle, Crooks brought two explosive devices to the rally. Both were capable of remote detonation, and the transmitter was found on Crooks' body. The explosives were found in the suspect's vehicle near the rally.
Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, updating lawmakers on the FBI's investigation into the shooting. It was the third time in as many days that Congress held a hearing regarding the investigations into the attempted assassination of Trump.
Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle delivered testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, and she resigned soon after. The House Homeland Security Committee heard testimony from Pennsylvania State Police on Tuesday, followed by Wray's hearing on Wednesday.
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The House of Representatives voted unanimously on Wednesday to open a commission to investigate the shooting.
Butler County Coroner William F. Young III was unable to attend the campaign rally for former President Donald Trump on Saturday, July 13, because of other engagements, but he found himself at the Butler Farm Show grounds after midnight Sunday to examine the victim who was shot at the rally.
Young and a deputy coroner confirmed the death of Buffalo Township’s Corey Comperatore early Sunday morning and sent his body to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner to complete the autopsy.
The coroner and another deputy later returned after 6 a.m. to the American Glass Research (AGR) International building, where he climbed onto its roof to confirm the death of Thomas Matthew Crooks, whose gunfire killed Comperatore and struck three others, including Trump. The presidential candidate’s right ear was struck by a bullet before he was whisked off stage.
Young then sent Crooks’ body to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner for the autopsy. The Allegheny medical examiner did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Young said his initial assessment was that both Comperatore and Crooks died from gunshot wounds to the head.
“They were both gunshot wounds to the head, and they are both considered homicide,” Young said. “I took them both to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner; they have everything right there at their fingertips. For situations like that, you have to do an autopsy.”
Officials said that sniper fire killed the gunman after he fired several shots from the roof of the Butler Township building that overlooks the farm show grounds, located primarily in Connoquenessing Township.
Young said he was called to the farm show grounds late, after the scene was cleared, in order to examine Comperatore, and he expected to check on Crooks’ body after transporting Comperatore to Pittsburgh. However, officials told Young that they had to clear the area around AGR for potential explosives or bombs, which is why he didn’t evaluate Crooks until after 6 a.m.
“What the delay was there was, he possibly had a bomb in the car and that held everything off,” Young said. “That was part of their investigation.”
Former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told 'America's Newsroom' on Thursday that “some kind of radicalization” happened involving Trump rally shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks.
“They really have to start when that guy graduated from high school. Something happened between then and the day of the shooting,” Rogers said about the deceased 20-year-old gunman.
“It was either self-radicalized, or he had some mental distress or other things or external forces,” Rogers added.
“They really are going to have to spend some time and effort” getting into encrypted files linked to Crooks and in the FBI can’t do it internally, Rogers says, “they need to go to the private sector, there are some capabilities out there that might help them do that.”
“They need to at least eliminate that possibility of somebody else helping this guy get up on that roof and crank off some rounds,” Rogers also said.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has written a letter Thursday to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas citing a whistleblower as saying that the Secret Service “repeatedly denied offers from a local law enforcement partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally” in Pennsylvania where the Trump assassination attempt unfolded.
Hawley told Mayorkas that the “new whistleblower allegations” further “call into question your department’s preparations.”
“According to reports, the shooter used a drone to survey the site in preparation for his attack,” Hawley wrote. “This was confirmed by FBI Director Christopher Wray in his testimony just yesterday.”
“This raises an obvious question: why wasn’t the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) not using its own drones?” he continued.
“According to one whistleblower, the night before the rally, U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied offers from a local law enforcement partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally,” Hawley said. “This means that the technology was both available to USSS and able to be deployed to secure the site. Secret Service said no. The whistleblower further alleges that after the shooting took place, USSS changed course and asked the local partner to deploy the drone technology to surveil the site in the aftermath of the attack.”
“It’s hard to understand why USSS would decline to use drones when they were offered, particularly given the fact USSS permitted the shooter to overfly the rally area with his own drone mere hours before event,” Hawley also said.
EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump is releasing his third official book since leaving office—a photo book filled with images to highlight the "great success" of the U.S. under his leadership, telling Fox News Digital that it represents the "power" that the country "will have again" if he is re-elected in November.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, detailed his new book, "SAVE AMERICA," in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital Thursday.
The book offers a look at Trump’s first term, and "a vision for his next term," according to the description. Each photo in the new book has been selected by Trump, along with his words, which offer an insight into what will shape a possible second Trump administration.
"This book represents the campaign that we’re in the midst of, which has been going really well," Trump said.
The cover features the iconic photo taken by New York Times photographer Doug Mills, of Trump standing triumphantly in front of an American flag, just moments after the assassination attempt earlier this month at his rally in Butler, Pa.
"Now, we’re running against a radical left lunatic," Trump said. "We beat Biden. That’s why he quit. He quit because of the debate. He quit because he got beaten. He was so far down in the polls that they threw him out."
FIRST ON FOX: As details slowly emerge about the assassination attempt against former President Trump, one Republican lawmaker is introducing a bill to force the federal government to declassify all information related to the event.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., will introduce the "Trump Assassination Attempt Transparency Act" on Thursday, just a day after FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the Trump rally shooting and investigation into gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks.
"We need the truth about the assassination attempt against President Trump," Hawley told Fox News Digital in a statement. "We can't let the federal government hide behind the ‘classified’ label."
The bill would require the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Secretary of Homeland Security to declassify any critical information about the assassination attempt and the motive of the shooter as well as Trump's repeated requests for resources. The legislation, if passed, would also require intelligence agencies to produce a report to Congress on its findings.
FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during a House Judiciary Committee hearing that someone affiliated with the agency is being internally investigated for posting something "totally inappropriate" about former President Trump's assassination attempt.
Wray's comments came while the agency's director was testifying under oath on Wednesday on the Trump rally shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the subsequent investigation into the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, asked the director whether "any FBI agents texted, emailed or expressed disappointment that Trump survived the assassination attempt or otherwise editorialized about the assassination attempt?"
Wray said he was not aware of any agents voicing inappropriate rhetoric, but there had been one instance "of an individual who posted something that I consider outrageous, totally inappropriate, and unacceptable."
The agency's director said the individual was referred to the FBI's inspection division for an internal investigation.
Drone footage taken by Fox News shows the vantage point Trump rally shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks had when he opened fire on July 13 during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The footage shows that Crooks was mostly concealed by trees when he started shooting at the former president.
Crooks eventually was killed by a Secret Service countersniper who a source tells Fox News pulled off a “one in a million shot.”
Fox News’ CB Cotton contributed to this report.
Former President Trump has announced a new book Thursday called "Save America" which features a cover image of him raising his fist after being shot during the July 13 rally in Pennsylvania.
“In ‘SAVE AMERICA’, President Donald J. Trump offers an unparalleled look into his four years as the 45th President of the United States, and a vision for his next term! ‘SAVE AMERICA’ is filled with iconic moments from the first Trump Administration,” reads a description of the book.
“From Historic Summits with World Leaders to candid scenes from the White House, every photo has been selected by President Trump, alongside his words, which provide insight into what will shape his next four years in office,” the description adds.
President Biden delivered an approximately 11-minute address to the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday.
While sitting behind the Resolute Desk, surrounded by portraits of American presidents, Biden spoke of his decision to discontinue his re-election campaign and laid out his plan for the remainder of his term.
He also said "I'll keep calling out hate and extremism. Make it clear [that] there is no place, no place in America for political violence or any violence that ever. Period."
Trump survived an assassination attempt on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, sending a unifying shock wave throughout the Republican Party, which formally named him their nominee the following week.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told ‘America’s Newsroom’ on Thursday following a vote to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the Trump assassination attempt that “the reason we created the task force is so that they can move quickly – speed and precision are really important here.”
Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testified Monday that “when I have a full and complete, report of exactly what happened, there will be accountability and we will make changes” -- but then said a report on that won’t be complete until up to 60 days from now.
“Sixty days is not soon enough,” Johnson said Thursday, adding that the Republicans and Democrats who will serve on the task force will be named later today.
“They will work in earnest, there is a deadline of early December for their final report, but we expect and anticipate interim reports along the way,” Johnson said.
Former Secret Service agent Bobby McDonald told ‘Fox & Friends’ on Thursday that "I think that the American people need some more answers and need them in a rather quick fashion” when it comes to the FBI’s investigation into the Trump rally shooting.
“I’m sure they are moving along with the investigation, and I understand the need to keep that investigation with a high level of integrity, but we got a situation here – what 12 days out now – where there is a lot of information that is already out, a lot of eyewitnesses were there, a lot of cell phone video, a lot of people who saw exactly what was happening and a lot of witness statements,” McDonald said.
“This is a serious situation now and as we keep getting these nuggets of information, we don’t need to be fingerpointing. We need the Secret Service to stand up and take responsibility for this, and then we need to continue the investigation to get the answers that we deserve, and the Secret Service needs to continue to reboot, reset what it is doing on a daily basis,” McDonald continued.
“A lot of good work done by the men and women of the Secret Service every day, we weren’t very good on July 13. But we have to continue to go out and do what we are doing as we move into the home stretch of the election season,” he added.
Former President Trump said Thursday to 'Fox & Friends' that the Secret Service are "such great people" but the assassination attempt against him that happened in Pennsylvania is "a blight on their reputation.
"There should have been somebody on the roof. When you look at it now, it's a clear shot," he said.
Former President Trump told 'Fox & Friends' on Thursday that the "biggest mistake they made is allowing me to go... they shouldn't have let me go on the stage" at the rally in Pennsylvania where he was shot at.
"Different groups of people knew there was some nutjob on the roof, and he was up there," Trump added, noting that there was one woman screaming "there's a guy with a gun on the roof."
"And that was, you know, quite a bit before I walked up to the stage. And then you had the local policeman who, it looks like he got up there and he saw the guy, and then he fell off the roof and what happened to him?" Trump continued. "Why didn't he start screaming there's a gun? So there are many people, but the communication was bad. "
Former President Trump, speaking to 'Fox & Friends' on Thursday about the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, said "some big mistakes were made."
Trump made the comment after he was asked for his thoughts on FBI Director Christopher Wray revealing Wednesday that shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks searched about the JFK assassination in the days leading up to Trump's July 13 event in Butler.
"My people were constantly complaining that they need more people and they would -- I mean I wasn't very much involved in it, that was up to them -- but they were constantly complaining that they're not given enough people," Trump said.
Trump, speaking about the Secret Service agents that rushed to protect him that day, called them "very brave."
"But they made a mistake in not having somebody on the roof. And the communications with local police was obviously horrible," he added.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said that his agency is still not certain how Thomas Matthew Crooks accessed the roof of the building where he took aim at former President Donald Trump – but they don't believe he used a ladder.
Despite the fact that a "bloodied receipt" found on Crooks' dead body included a 5-foot ladder purchase, Wray told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, his agency believes that "the subject climbed onto the roof using some mechanical equipment, on the ground and vertical piping on the side of the AGR building" on July 13.
"In other words, we do not believe he used a ladder to get up there," he said in Washington, D.C.
"We did not find the ladder at the scene," Wray told Rep. Steve Cohen. "He did buy a ladder. But the ladder was not found at the scene."
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told ‘Your World’ following Christopher Wray’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee that he believes the FBI director is “pretty embattled at the moment.”
“I think that the FBI director is pretty embattled at the moment – you got the former president and current Republican nominee who had an assassination attempt. Secret Service [Director Kimberly Cheatle] has already resigned,” Roy said.
“You got the FBI director covering up the fact that they got DEI watering down their standards. You got the FBI director trying to obfuscate the mental competency of the president. You got the FBI director basically acknowledging that they couldn’t stop this guy who was a 20-year-old lone shooter who shows up three times ahead of the event and has a drone flying overhead – why didn’t they have that place locked down?” Roy continued. “Why didn’t they have their own assets flying over it? What is the FBI actually doing?”
Roy also said one thing he found “astounding” from Wray’s testimony on the Trump assassination attempt response is “we have this individual who shows up there three times ahead of the event, and then flies a drone 200 yards away – and he does that the afternoon of the event – and the Federal Bureau of Investigation can’t stop this shooter.”
BETHEL PARK, Pa. — FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed on Wednesday that Thomas Matthew Crooks' family had more than a dozen firearms in their Pennsylvania home and that father Matthew Crooks legally sold his son the weapon that the 20-year-old would use in his assassination attempt on former President Trump.
"We located a number of firearms associated with the shooter and his family," Wray told the House Judiciary Committee. "I think it was a total of … 14 in the house."
"The weapon that he used for the attempted assassination was an AR-style rifle that was purchased legally," Wray said. "We believe, based on what we’ve seen, that his father, after purchasing the gun, legally sold the gun to his son." with a rifle onto a rooftop just outside the rally perimeter.
Acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ronald L. Rowe, Jr. will testify before three Senate committees next Tuesday on the July 13 attempted assassination of former President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The hearing, which will also feature testimony from Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate, is titled "Examination of the Security Failures Leading to the Assassination Attempt on Former President Trump."
It is a joint hearing between the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.
The testimony comes after days of hearings on Capitol Hill this week about the security lapses leading up to the July 13 shooting.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testified on Monday before the House Oversight Committee, before resigning the following day, while FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to House lawmakers on Wednesday.
Fox News' Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
The House of Representatives unanimously voted to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
No lawmakers voted "no" nor "present," and 416 voted "yes." Ten Democrats and six Republicans did not vote.
The task force will be comprised of seven Republicans and six Democrats, with the members likely being announced this week.
House GOP leaders raced the bill to the floor after the deadly shooting at Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania, rally nearly two weeks ago. One attendee died, and two others were injured, with Trump himself getting shot in the ear and evacuated off the stage by the Secret Service.
The vote was bipartisan, as expected — the hours following the shooting prompted a flurry of bipartisan condemnations against political violence, as well as scrutiny of the security situation that allowed a 20-year-old gunman with a rifle onto a rooftop just outside the rally perimeter.
The gunman who tried to assassinate former president Donald Trump had searched online days earlier for information about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and used a rifle with a collapsible stock that may have made it easier for him to disguise the weapon before climbing onto a roof, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said Wednesday.
Wray’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee offered the most detailed account to date of the actions of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman who was fatally shot by a Secret Service sniper after opening fire during the July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pa. One rallygoer was killed, two others were critically injured, and Trump suffered a graze wound to his ear.
The rally shooting, two days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, rattled elected officials across the country and raised new fears about political violence in a tumultuous presidential election year. Wray sought to reassure lawmakers that his agency was doing everything possible to understand the gunman’s actions, while also cautioning that other federal investigators would be responsible for assessing the security failure that made the attack possible.
A week before the rally, Crooks searched for answers to “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy,” Wray said — a reference to the assassin who used a rifle to kill President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.
“That’s a search that’s obviously significant in terms of his state of mind,” the FBI director said during the hours-long hearing, which was dominated by questions about the attack on Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. “He was interested in public figures and — I think this is important — starting around July 6 or so, he became very focused on former president Trump and this rally.”
That same day, Wray said, the gunman also registered to attend the outdoor rally.
Crooks, who lived about an hour away in Bethel Park, Pa., fired at Trump from a rooftop just outside the rally security perimeter, using an AR-style rifle. FBI investigators have said so far that the gunman did not appear to have any discernible ideology, suggesting he was not motivated primarily by political animosity.
Wray said the exact nature of Trump’s injury remains uncertain: “There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.”
“There’s a whole lot of work underway and still a lot of work to do,” Wray said. “The shooter may be deceased, but the FBI’s investigation is very much ongoing.”
“We’d love to have a road map that tells us exactly what he’s thinking,” the director continued. “We haven’t found that yet.”
Wray, who was nominated to lead the FBI in 2017 by then-President Trump, avoided discussing the security shortcomings that preceded the attack, saying those issues are under review by an inspector general and an outside group of experts. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday under pressure from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers over the lapses.
Somewhat unusually for the House Judiciary Committee, Wednesday’s hearing included hours focused mostly on the facts and substance of the Trump assassination attempt, rather than the partisan finger-pointing that typically dominates such sessions.
Still, there was some partisanship.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who chairs the committee, is a longtime Trump ally and critic of Wray, the FBI and the Justice Department. He began the hearing by criticizing what he called “the Biden-Harris Justice Department” — an acknowledgment that Vice President Harris is now running for the Democratic nomination after President Biden announced he would not seek a second term.
Before Wray finished testifying, Trump attacked him on social media, saying he should resign not because of anything to do with the shooting, but because the FBI director answered questions about his interactions with Biden by saying he observed nothing awry in the president’s cognitive abilities.
“If that is the case, Director Wray should resign immediately from the FBI, and stop ‘sweet talking’ Congress every time he goes up, which he loves to do,” Trump posted.
Wray told lawmakers that the rifle used in the rally shooting was bought legally in 2013 by the gunman’s father, who sold it to his son in October 2023. The FBI determined that the family had 14 guns, the director said.
The weapon had a collapsible stock, meaning the gunman might have been able to hide it from view while carrying it before the attack. Wray noted that witnesses at the rally reported seeing a man with a gun on the rooftop, but not earlier, which might be explained by the collapsible stock.
The FBI director also confirmed a number of details from the investigation that have been publicly reported, including that there were eight spent bullet casings found near the gunman’s body — indicating that he fired at least that many times.
Before Crooks opened fire, a local police officer was boosted up so he could peer over the roof; the officer saw the man in a prone position with a gun, Wray said. Crooks turned to look at the officer, who then ducked down.
“That’s seconds before the event,” Wray said.
The director also described how Crooks apparently used a drone hours before the shooting to examine the area near the rally, but not directly overhead.
“The drone was recovered in his vehicle,” Wray testified. “The shooter was flying the drone around the area, not over the stage. … We think that he was live-streaming, viewing the footage for about 11 minutes, about 200 yards away.”
Two explosive devices were found in the shooter’s car, items that Wray called “relatively crude devices themselves, but they did have the ability to be detonated remotely.”
However, because the remotely controlled devices attached to the homemade bombs were left in the “off” position, Wray said, it appears “that if he had tried to detonate those devices from the roof, it would not have worked.”
Technical experts at the FBI lab in Quantico, Va., were able to crack open the gunman’s phone within two days of the attack. While they found some evidence of interest, the device did not provide an explanation for his motive, people familiar with the investigation have said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the ongoing case.
The gunman used some encrypted messaging applications, which Wray said have “unfortunately now become very commonplace” in FBI investigations, as popular messaging software often includes encryption.
Asked whether the FBI believed there were any accomplices or co-conspirators in the shooting, Wray answered, “Not at this time, but again the investigation is ongoing.”
Testifying before Congress on Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray shared new details in the criminal investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump earlier this month.
What You Need To Know
- FBI Director Christopher Wray shared new details in the criminal investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump earlier this month
- Wray confirmed to the House Judiciary Committee that investigators recovered a drone from the vehicle of the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20
- It appears that the shooter flew the drone for 11 minutes about 2½ hours before opening fire on Trump at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania
- Analysis of a laptop linked to him revealed that on July 6 he searched online for “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?”
Wray confirmed to the House Judiciary Committee that investigators recovered a drone from the vehicle of the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20. It appears that the shooter flew the drone for 11 minutes about 2½ hours before opening fire on Trump at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The drone did not fly above the stage where the Republican presidential nominee would later stand, but about 200 yards away, the FBI director testified.
The drone did not record video, but the hypothesis of experts is that the shooter viewed a livestream from its camera, Wray said.
On July 13, Crooks fired several shots at Trump while perched on a nearby warehouse rooftop, striking the former president in the right ear. One rallygoer was killed, and two others were wounded. The gunman was fatally shot by a Secret Service sniper.
"The attempted assassination of the former president was an attack on our democracy and our democratic process, and we will not and do not tolerate political violence of any kind, especially a despicable account of this magnitude," Wray said in his opening statement. "And I want to assure you, and the American people that the men and women of the FBI will continue to work tirelessly to get to the bottom of what happened.
"Now, there's a whole lot of work underway and still a lot of work to do, and our understanding of what happened and why will continue to evolve, but we're going to leave no stone unturned."
Wray said the gunman became “very focused” on Trump and the rally a week before the shooting and that analysis of a laptop linked to him revealed that on July 6 he searched online for “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?” The would-be assassin registered to attend the rally the same day, Wray said.
The shooter visited the rally site at least three times, according to Wray: a week earlier for about 20 minutes, the morning of the rally for around 70 minutes and then finally in the afternoon for the event.
Wray said the FBI’s lab is also examining three explosive devices the shooter had — two in his vehicle and one at his home.
The FBI director described the devices as “relatively crude” but added “they did have the ability to be detonated remotely.” The gunman had a transmitter on him when he was killed, but it appears that if he had tried to detonate the devices from the roof where he was positioned, “it would not have worked,” Wray said.
Wray testified that investigators are still working to learn more about the shooter’s state of mind, motive and ideology.
The FBI director said investigators have been able to examine a number of the gunman’s electronic devices but not all of them. They must receive legal clearance to review some while encryption issues on others have frustrated agents so far, he added.
“We have some information,” Wray said. “Some places we've been able to look. Some places we will be able to look. Some places we may never be able to see.”
Wray said, based on the shooter’s online search history, it appears “fairly clear” he “was interested in public figures” in general.
The FBI director added that descriptions by people who knew him of Crooks being a “loner” seem to align with what investigators have learned through his devices. His list of contacts was relatively short, and he appeared to have limited interaction, face to face or electronically, with other people, Wray said.
Wray also said he’s seen no evidence the shooter had any accomplices or co-conspirators but that the FBI continues to look into the possibility.
Eight bullet cartridges from the gunman’s semiautomatic rifle were recovered from the rooftop, Wray said.
Several investigations have been launched into the assassination attempt. In addition to the FBI probe, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is examining the Service Service’s process for protecting Trump at the rally and the Counter Sniper Team’s preparedness. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also has appointed a bipartisan, independent panel of law enforcement and security experts to examine how the shooting was able to happen.
There are multiple congressional inquiries. Among them, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., announced Tuesday they are launching a task force of seven Republicans and six Democrats to investigate.
And Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned as Secret Service director Tuesday, told lawmakers Monday the agency is conducting an internal “mission assurance” investigation.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Wednesday that it was not clear whether former President Donald Trump was shot or hit by shrapnel when a gunman opened fire at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.
The FBI is investigating the July 13 shooting, which killed one rally-goer and seriously injured two others before the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead by the Secret Service.
Trump was rushed off stage with a bloodied ear. He said that night that he was "shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear." He said he heard "a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin" in a post on his Truth Social platform.
A week after the shooting, the Trump campaign released a doctor's note from Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson—who had served as Trump's White House physician—that said Trump sustained a gunshot wound to his right ear that was "less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear." Trump is "doing well, and he is recovering as expected," Jackson said.
But on Wednesday, Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee that it is not yet certain if Trump's injury was caused by a bullet or shrapnel.
"To the best of your understanding, how close did the assassin's bullet come to killing President Donald Trump?" California Rep. Kevin Kiley asked Wray.
Wray replied that his understanding was that either a bullet or a piece of shrapnel "is what grazed [Trump's] ear."
Later in the hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee chairman, asked Wray if all eight bullets fired by the gunman had been accounted for.
"We obviously know that Mr. Comperatore lost his life…two other rally goers were injured, seriously injured, and then the one that hit President Trump. Does that account for…were some of these individuals hit multiple times?" Jordan asked. "Where did all eight bullets go, is I guess my question."
Wray said he did not have that information to hand, adding: "As I said, 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.
"So it's conceivable, as I sit here right now, I don't know whether that bullet in addition to, you know, causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else. But I believe we've accounted for all of the shots in the cartridges."
The Trump campaign has been contacted for comment via email.
The FBI was not involved in security for the rally and so has not received the same level of scrutiny as the Secret Service.
Kimberly Cheatle resigned as the agency's director on Tuesday, a day after she was grilled by lawmakers about the assassination attempt. In an email to staff, she said she takes "full responsibility for the security lapse" that led to the shooting.
Wray on Wednesday said the FBI would "work tirelessly to get to the bottom of what happened."
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Published: 01:02 BST, 25 July 2024 | Updated: 13:25 BST, 25 July 2024
The FBI's director has cast doubt on whether Donald Trump was struck by a bullet during the attempt on his life at a Pennsylvania political rally.
Christopher Wray was updating Congress about the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler on Wednesday when he made the explosive statement.
'With respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,' Wray said.
'I don't know right now whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have landed somewhere else.'
Wray was addressing security failures that allowed gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks to open fire. Crooks, 20, killed firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, and injured two others including Trump during the shooting.
The presidential hopeful has since given extensive accounts of the moment he was shot and was seen sporting a bandage over his ear.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has cast doubt on whether Donald Trump was actually shot during the attempt on his life at a Pennsylvania political rally.
'When I went down, bullets were coming over my head and you hear them, it's like a zip, zip,' he said.
The former president claims his Secret Service detail 'thought it was over when I went down' because of 'a lot of blood coming' after his ear was grazed.
Trump, 78, argued with his agents, telling them how he was 'not going on a stretcher' and instead vowed to 'get up'.
He added that a last minute turn of the head to glance at a screen is what saved him from the bullet.
'I'm supposed to be dead. The most incredible thing was that I happened to not only turn, but to turn at the exact right time and in just the right amount,' he added, saying he survived 'by luck or by God'.
Some initial reports on the day of the shooting speculated that Trump may have been struck by a shattered piece of glass when a bullet struck the teleprompter.
The teleprompter theory, however, was debunked when photos showed that both glass screens were in tact after the attack.
Trump tuned into Wray's testimony, which also saw him detail how Crooks had researched the assassination of President John F. Kennedy prior to the shooting.
The gunman did a Google search one week prior of 'How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?' according to Wray, who said the suspect he said had taken a keen interest in public figures but had otherwise not left behind clear clues of an ideological motive.
The July 6 online search, recovered from a laptop the FBI says is tied to Crooks, is a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter who killed Kennedy from a sniper's perch in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
Wray said his understanding was that a bullet or some shrapnel 'is what grazed his [Trump's] ear' during the attempted assassination in Butler on July 13
Trump pumped a fist at the crowd and appeared to mouth 'fight' before being escorted off the stage by his security detail on July 13, 2024.
'That's a search obviously that is significant in terms of his state of mind. That is the same day that it appears that he registered' for the Trump rally, Wray told the House Judiciary Committee.
The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism.
The investigation has thrust the bureau into a political maelstrom months before the presidential election, with lawmakers and the public pressing for details about what may have motivated Crooks.
'We do not know the motive. That is obviously one of the central questions in our investigation, and it's been very frustrating to us that a lot of the usual kind of low-hanging-fruit places that we would find that have not yielded significant clues about his motive,' Wray said.
The hearing had been scheduled well before the shooting as part of the committee’s routine oversight of the FBI and the Justice Department.
Questions about the shooting dominated the session, but other topics included the FBI’s diversity efforts, election interference, the Jan 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol and whether Wray had personally observed any cognitive decline in meetings with Biden prior to his decision to withdraw from the election.
His answer that he had not witnessed any issues with the president's mental state left Trump unimpressed, with the Republican nominee calling for Wray to resign.
'I watched the Congressional Hearing today as Christopher Wray was asked the question whether or not he noticed any Cognitive Degeneration in his many conversations with Crooked Joe Biden,' Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.
Members of the crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania rushed to his aid following the shooting
The presidential hopeful has since given extensive accounts of the moment he was shot and was seen sporting a bandage over his ear
'Wray should resign immediately from the FBI, and stop 'sweet talking' Congress every time he goes up, which he loves to do, because anybody can see that Joe Biden is cognitively and physically challenged.
'And if you can't see that, you sure as hell can't be running the FBI - Unless, that is, you want to illegally lead the Raid on Mar-a-Lago. Wray has to resign, and NOW, for LYING TO CONGRESS!'
The FBI was not involved in ensuring security for the rally and has therefore avoided the same level of scrutiny directed at the Secret Service over the lapses that preceded the event.
On Tuesday, Kimberly Cheatle resigned as the agency’s director amid mounting questions over her the colossal security failures at the rally.
Cheatle took responsibility for the catastrophic lapses after she was lambasted by Republicans and Democrats alike when she appeared before Congress on Monday.
The security chief had faced mounting questions over why an agent was not stationed on the roof from where Crooks opened fire on the former president, and why Trump was allowed to take the stage even when a threat was detected.
Crooks had been identified as a suspicious person hours before the shooting took place.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has dramatically announced her resignation after the massive security failures that led to the attempted assassination on Donald Trump
Wray's testimony before Congress touched on security failures which allowed Thomas Matthew Crooks to open fire despite being identified as a suspicious person on the day of the shooting
He was shot dead by a sniper but not before he was able to discharge a volley of bullets into the crowd.
Wray said Crooks used mechanical equipment on the ground and vertical piping, to hoist himself up onto the roof of a squat manufacturing building that was within 135 meters (157 yards) of the stage.
He fired eight shots from an AR-style rifle before he was killed.
The Warren Commission report that analyzed the Kennedy assassination assessed that Kennedy had been shot through the neck at a range of 174.9 feet to 190.8 feet.
At this month's NATO summit in Washington, Turkey took heat for its double game on the Ukraine war: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan clearly wants the 32-member alliance to not get too much in Russian President Vladimir Putin's way. The NATO leadership should be equally concerned about this prickly ally's flirtation with another dictator: Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev.
Turkey's relationship with Azerbaijan is at the heart of a web of contradictions that badly undermines the viability of Turkey as an ally of the West, but could be fixed in ways that would genuinely lead to progress in the region and recast Ankara as a good-faith player.
Since the Gaza war broke out, Turkey has been vehemently critical of Israel, presenting its position as moral and deploying the language of justice on behalf of the oppressed of the world. This effort to claim a mantle of righteousness is starkly contradicted by Turkey's robust alliance with Azerbaijan—a country which is engaged in genuinely heinous actions against its neighbors and its own population (and which is also closely aligned with Israel, which seems to bother Turkey not at all).
Just a little over a week before the Hamas invasion of Israel, Azerbaijan carried out a massive ethnic cleansing of ethnic Armenians in the formerly self-governing republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is the historic heartland of the Armenians, the world's oldest Christian civilization (dating back to 301).
Azerbaijan had been starving the 120,000 people in the enclave for 10 months via a brutal blockade—an action that the International Court of Justice ordered (repeatedly, in vain) be stopped. Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, called this a genocide (based on Article 2C of the United Nations' Genocide Convention)—again to no avail. And in September 2023 Azerbaijan attacked, compelling the flight of the entire population within days, under the watchful eye of Azerbaijani troops, who also arrested Nagorno-Karabakh's leadership. They are now being held hostage and subjected to sham trials. Azerbaijan has since busied itself with erasing any trace of the Armenians ever having been there.
Turkey, which calls Israel's actions in Gaza a "genocide," has armed a genocidally Armenophobic Azerbaijan and provided diplomatic cover throughout its actions. And, of course, it continues to steadfastly deny the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire, even though there is no dispute that about 1.5 million Armenians were killed over a few years beginning in 1915.
The Azerbaijani rampage in Nagorno-Karabakh is not the end of the matter. Azerbaijan's Aliyev has repeatedly suggested he has designs on the territory of Armenia itself. The landlocked country of 3 million people may be small, but it is inconveniently situated for Azerbaijan's desire for a land bridge to Turkey. It is a goal quietly shared by Turkey, since Erdogan's neo-Ottoman ambitions would be served by direct access to Azerbaijan and other similarly Turkic nations beyond, in central Asia.
Thus can we expect Azerbaijan to eventually try to seize a slice of Armenia, through what it refers to as the "Zangezur corridor." This would be intended to connect Azerbaijan with its exclave Nakhchivan via Armenia's southern Syunik Province. If Azerbaijan attempted such a land grab, it would be doing this with weapons supplied by Turkey—from missile systems and armored vehicles to drones, electronic warfare systems, and anti-tank systems. One could even expect Turkey to provide Azerbaijan with Syrian mercenaries as it did during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. It would be a blatant assault on the world order and the notion of territorial integrity.
Aliyev does all this while running what every global watchdog sees as one of the most oppressive regimes on earth (see this report from Freedom House).
How can Turkey, a member of NATO who at least theoretically wants close relations with (if not membership in) the European Union, possibly justify any of this?
Historically, Turkey's foreign policy has been a complex web of strategic alliances and ideological posturing. Under Erdogan, Turkey has sought to become a dominant regional power by leveraging nationalist sentiments and historical grievances to consolidate strength domestically while pursuing an aggressively independent foreign policy (currently exemplified by a double game with Russia, which included efforts to delay and impede the accession to NATO of Finland and Sweden).
It's an approach that has frequently put Turkey at odds with international norms and expectations. Part of that defiance has been the installation by Erdogan of a prototypical authoritarian democracy, with massive power being concentrated in the hands of the executive and with opponents—be they generals, judges or journalists—languishing in jail.
The result has been significant challenges, including economic instability, internal dissent, and strained relationships with Western allies. For Turkey to step back and address these inconsistencies would require a monumental shift in how it approaches its foreign policy.
It should begin by recognizing the Armenian Genocide, or at least stopping the denial of it. That would not only mend historical wounds but also restore some moral high ground. Additionally, if Turkey aspires to be taken seriously as a leader and a country with any semblance of moral authority, it must reconsider its close alliance with Azerbaijan. It must ask whether that alliance is built on mutual respect and shared values or merely on transient strategic needs that could expose it to valid criticism and diplomatic isolation.
A critical area where Turkey can demonstrate its commitment to a principled foreign policy is in its stance on the so-called "Zangezur Corridor." If Turkey is to be seen as a responsible regional power, it must ensure that Azerbaijan does not resort to military aggression to carve out this corridor. Turkey should also actively move toward finally normalizing relations with Armenia and opening up a border crossing, regardless of Azerbaijan's unwillingness to do the same.
Turkey's role should be one of mediation and restraint, ensuring that any developments in this region are achieved through diplomatic means rather than force. The Erdogan regime must recognize that unwavering support for Azerbaijan's aggressive ambitions undermines Turkey's moral and strategic interests. By encouraging Azerbaijan to pursue peaceful negotiations and respecting Armenia's territorial integrity, Turkey can take a significant step towards restoring its credibility.
Turkey has the potential to play a constructive role in the South Caucasus—but it may need some nudging in this direction. Ankara's NATO allies should insist that Erdogan cease being an enabler of Aliyev's aggression and instead use its influence to rein in one of the world's worst-faith regimes.
Sheila Paylan (@SheilaPaylan) is a human rights lawyer with more than 15 years of experience advising the United Nations. She regularly consults for a variety of international organizations, NGOs, think tanks, and governments.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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FBI Director Christopher Wray says there is "some question" about whether former President Donald Trump was struck by a bullet or shrapnel during the July 13 attempt on his life.
Wray testified on Wednesday, July 24 before the House Judiciary Committee about the ongoing investigation into the assassination attempt.
"With respect to former President Trump, there's some question about whether or not it's a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear," Wray responded to Chairman Jim Jordan, who asked him if the FBI had accounted for all of gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks' bullets at the scene, per ABC News and CBS News.
"It's conceivable, although as I sit here right now, I don't know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else," Wray added. "But I believe we've accounted for all the shots in the cartridges."
Trump, 78, was speaking at a rally in Butler, Penn. on Saturday, July 13, when gunshots rang out. The Republican presidential nominee flinched and raised his hand to his right ear before being tackled to the ground by Secret Service agents. As he got up to be escorted away, blood could be seen on his ear and face.
Donald Trump is escorted away by Secret Service after an assassination attempt on July 13, 2024.Later that evening, Trump posted his first update after the shooting on Truth Social.
"I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear," the post read. "I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening."
In a follow-up post Sunday, July 14, Trump wrote, "Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening. We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness. Our love goes out to the other victims and their families," referencing Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who was killed. Two other rally attendees were also injured.
On Monday, July 15, Trump appeared at the Republican National Convention with a large white bandage on his right ear, which he continued to wear throughout the rest of the event.
On Thursday, July 18, Trump again spoke about his injury after formally accepting his party's nomination.
"I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear. I said to myself, 'Wow what was that? It can only be a bullet,' " Trump recalled in his convention speech. "I moved my right hand to my ear, brought it down, my hand was covered with blood. Just absolutely blood all over the place. I immediately knew it was very serious, that we were under attack, and in one movement proceeded to drop to the ground."
At another rally in Michigan on Saturday, July 20, Trump — no longer wearing a bandage — said, "Last week, I took a bullet for democracy."
That same day, Axios reported Trump's former White House physician and Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson shared a memo about Trump's injury. In the memo, which was released by the Trump campaign and not an official government press release, Jackson wrote that "the bullet track produced a 2 cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear."
On Wednesday, Wray, 57, also testified that the gunman had flown a drone over the rally grounds two hours before the event, and that Crooks had searched online about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy days prior to the shooting.
“There’s a whole lot of work underway and still a lot of work to do,” Wray added about the ongoing investigation.
No ReportDid the FBI say a ballistics test shows Donald Trump was not shot in the ear during a July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on the former president? No, that's not true: The agency told Lead Stories, "The FBI has not released a ballistics report." There are no verified reports or credible information indicating that the FBI has released any ballistics test related to the shooting.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly Twitter, on July 23, 2024. The post's caption said:
JUST IN FROM FBI - BALLISTIC TEST MONDAY BRINGS QUESTIONS
A ballistic test at the Butler Fair Grounds on Monday during the USSS Hearing determined that Trump could not have been shot in the ear or he would have suffered a brain concussion/contusion and a broken neck
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Jul 24 16:22:07 2024 UTC)
The post provided no evidence to support its claim that the FBI released a ballistics test showing Trump was not shot in the ear during the assassination attempt.
FBI
Asked about the claim in the social media post, the FBI's National Press Office responded to Lead Stories in a July 24, 2024, email. It said:
The FBI has not released a ballistics report.
Google search
Lead Stories searched using keywords on Google News, visible here (archived here), and found no credible reporting as of July 24, 2024, to corroborate the claim that the FBI said a ballistics test shows Donald Trump was not shot in the ear.
Read more
More fact checks by Lead Stories about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, can be found here.
See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:
Previous Article Fact Check: Video Does NOT Show Trump Playing Golf With Undamaged Ear 10 Days After Shooting Next Article Fact Check: Tractors In Photo Were NOT On Beach Blocking Migrant Boats From Landing In UK -- Protest Was In FranceEd Payne is a staff writer at Lead Stories. He is an Emmy Award-winning journalist as part of CNN’s coverage of 9/11. Ed worked at CNN for nearly 24 years with the CNN Radio Network and CNN Digital. Most recently, he was a Digital Senior Producer for Gray Television’s Digital Content Center, the company’s digital news hub for 100+ TV stations. Ed also worked as a writer and editor for WebMD. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, Ed is the author of two children’s book series: “The Daily Rounds of a Hound” and “Vail’s Tales.”
Read more about or contact Ed Payne
WASHINGTON (AP) — The gunman in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump is believed to have done a Google search one week before the shooting of “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday, revealing new details about a suspect he said had taken a keen interest in public figures but had otherwise not left behind clear clues of an ideological motive.
The July 6 online search, recovered from a laptop the FBI says is tied to 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, is a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter who killed President John F. Kennedy from a sniper’s perch in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
“That’s a search obviously that is significant in terms of his state of mind. That is the same day that it appears that he registered” for the Trump rally scheduled for July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, Wray told the House Judiciary Committee.
The FBI is investigating the shooting, which killed one rallygoer and seriously injured two others, as an act of domestic terrorism. The investigation has thrust the bureau into a political maelstrom months before the presidential election, with lawmakers and the public pressing for details about what may have motivated Crooks in the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
The agency has built out a detailed timeline of Crooks’ movements and online activity, but the precise motive — or why Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was singled out — remains elusive, Wray said. The FBI’s assessment continues to be that Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service counter sniper, acted alone.
“We do not know the motive. That is obviously one of the central questions in our investigation, and it’s been very frustrating to us that a lot of the usual kind of low-hanging-fruit places that we would find that have not yielded significant clues about his motive,” Wray said.
But, he added, the bureau has seen indications that he was interested in public figures — officials said at a private briefing last week that besides Trump, Crooks also had photos on his phone of Democratic President Joe Biden and other prominent people — and in the days before the shooting had appeared particularly consumed by Trump and the Butler rally
Crooks is believed to have visited the rally site a week before the event, staying for about 20 minutes, and then returned on the morning of July 13. More than two hours before the shooting, Wray said, Crooks flew a drone about 200 yards from the rally stage for about 11 minutes, using the device to livestream and watch footage.
The use of the drone, which along with a controller were recovered from Crooks’ car, so close to the rally site just hours before Trump took the stage add to the questions about the security lapses that preceded the shooting.
On the afternoon of the rally, Crooks attracted law enforcement scrutiny because of odd behavior around the edges of the event, including shouldering a backpack and peering into the lens of a range finder toward the rooftops behind the stage where Trump would stand within the hour.
Using what Wray said was mechanical equipment on the ground and vertical piping, Crooks was able to hoist himself up onto the roof of a squat manufacturing building that was within 135 meters (157 yards) of the stage. Crooks fired eight shots from an AR-style rifle before he was killed. (The Warren Commission report that analyzed the Kennedy assassination assessed that Kennedy had been shot through the neck at a range of 174.9 feet to 190.8 feet, or about 53.3 meters to 58.1 meters.)
Trump’s campaign said the GOP nominee was doing “fine” after the shooting, which Trump said pierced the upper part of his right ear. Wray said his understanding was that either a bullet or some shrapnel “is what grazed his ear.”
He pledged that the FBI would “leave no stone unturned” in its investigation.
“I have been saying for some time now that we are living in an elevated threat environment, and tragically the Butler County assassination attempt is another example — a particularly heinous and very public one — of what I have been talking about,” Wray said.
He later added, “I think this is a moment where, in the most stark way possible, all of us as Americans can see how out of control political violence is in this country, and it’s an opportunity for everyone to come together and to try to show that this is not the kind of thing we’re going to tolerate in this country.”
The hearing had been scheduled well before the shooting as part of the committee’s routine oversight of the FBI and the Justice Department. Questions about the shooting dominated the session, but other topics included the FBI’s diversity efforts, election interference, the Jan 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol and whether Wray had personally observed any cognitive decline in meetings with Biden that preceded the president’s announcement Sunday that he would not seek reelection.
After Wray testified that his interactions had been “completely professional,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that the FBI director he appointed in 2017 “has to resign, and NOW, for LYING TO CONGRESS!”
The FBI was not involved in ensuring security for the rally and has therefore avoided the same level of scrutiny directed at the Secret Service over the lapses that preceded the event. On Tuesday, Kimberly Cheatle resigned as the agency’s director.
Even so, Wray was not entirely spared the politically charged and occasionally combative questions he typically receives from the Republican-led committee.
That’s a reflection of the lingering perception among some GOP lawmakers that the FBI and Justice Department in the Biden administration have become politicized against Trump — something Wray has consistently denied.
That sentiment was made clear early in the hearing when the committee chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Wray, “I’m sure you understand that a significant portion of the country has a healthy skepticism regarding the FBI’s ability to conduct a fair, honest, open and transparent investigation.”
At the conclusion of the daylong hearing, he praised Wray for having “told us some things that weren’t even prompted by questions.”
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Follow the AP’s coverage of FBI Director Christopher Wray at https://apnews.com/hub/christopher-wray.
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