Smooth-talking FBI Director Christopher Wray, a familiar presence on Capitol Hill, angered critics with his testimony that Donald Trump may not have been hit directly with a bullet during the assassination attempt at the former president's July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday Wray said: “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,” adding the investigation into the shooting, which is being led by the FBI, is “very much ongoing.”
Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician, ripped Wray in a statement on X: “What little credibility he may have left is gone after recklessly suggesting Trump might not have been hit from a bullet. It was a bullet — I’ve seen the wound. Pathetic!!!”
Jackson said in a July 20 letter released by the Trump campaign that he’d evaluated and treated Trump’s wound “daily” since the shooting.
“As reported and witnessed by the entire world, he sustained a gunshot wound to the right ear from a high-powered rifle used by the would-be assassin,” Jackson said in the letter. “The bullet track produced a 2 cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear,” adding that there “was initially significant bleeding,” but given “the broad and blunt nature of the wound itself, no sutures were required.”
House Speak Mike Johnson said he didn’t find Wray’s testimony credible: “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.”
Johnson also said Wray “was not forthcoming with some of the information that we would expect.”
“There’s a lot of frustration and concern about the leadership with these agencies,” Johnson said, apparently referring to the Secret Service as well.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung also blasted Wray, saying: “Anyone who believes this conspiracy bulls— is either mentally deficient or willfully peddling falsehoods for political reasons.”
Meanwhile, new details of the Secret Service's unmistakable failure in securing the Butler site were revealed on Thursday.
An anonymous whistleblower told Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley that the Secret Service declined an offer from local law enforcement to use drone technology at the rally.
The whistleblower said a local law enforcement partner made the drone offers to the Secret Service the night before the rally, according to Hawley. The whistleblower said that after the shooting occurred, the Secret Service “changed course” and asked local police to use drone technology to surveil the scene, Hawley wrote.
Wray confirmed on Wednesday that would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, flew a drone over the rally site about two hours before he carried out the shooting.
Wray said the FBI reverse-engineered the drone’s flight path and found that Crooks flew it around roughly 200 yards from the stage where Trump later spoke and livestreamed the site for about 11 minutes.
“This raises an obvious question: why was the U.S. Secret Service not using its own drones?” Hawley wrote.
The Missouri lawmaker said it was “hard to understand” why the Secret Service did not stop Crooks from using a drone so close to the rally start time while also refusing an offer from local police to employ a drone to help secure the event.
Trump expressed outrage Wednesday over another part of Wray’s testimony: His statement that he had not noticed any cognitive decline in his dealings with Joe Biden.
“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,” Trump wrote in a post on social media, adding that “Wray has to resign, and NOW, for LYING TO CONGRESS!”
Related: Trump again asks on behalf of world: ‘Who is running the country? . . . ‘Wray should resign’, July 24, 2024
In his rambling address to the nation on Wednesday night, Biden made no mention of the assassination attempt on Trump.
Human Events editor Jack Posobiec noted in a social media post: "We just had a presidential assassination attempt where a rally-goer was shot and killed and Biden didn't even mention it. What a disgusting person."
🚨🚨 NEW - Whistleblower tells me local law enforcement partners & suppliers offered drones to Secret Service BEFORE the rally - but Secret Service declined pic.twitter.com/UM0jfrMc9z
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 25, 2024
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