WASHINGTON — The FBI is examining steel fragments discovered near the site of a crusade rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, to determine whether a possible assassin’s bullet, or possible remains, grazed former President Donald Trump’s head and bloodied his right ear, according to the FBI and a federal law enforcement official.
The office requested to interview Trump as part of its broader investigation, hoping to provide data about the shooting and, in all likelihood, a more complete record of his injury, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to clarify whether the investigation is continuing.
Unanswered questions about the object that hit the Republican presidential candidate have persisted since the July 13 shooting, with Trump claiming it had been struck by a bullet and calling his survival an act of divine intervention.
FBI officials have been more cautious, citing a desire to analyze the evidence before determining what hit Trump — a bullet, a piece of steel or anything else.
The bureau’s shooting reconstruction team “continues to read through evidence from the scene, adding bullet fragments, and the investigation continues,” the FBI said Thursday. In addition to wounding Trump, the shooter, Thomas Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, shot three rally attendees, one of them fatally.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung did not answer whether he asked to review the former president’s medical records after the incident, but Trump did not make them public.
FBI officials consider the identity of the projectile to be important, but it is not a central component of a broader criminal investigation into the shooter’s actions. They are deeply interested in Crooks’ reasoning or any hint that he might have had a partner or other assistant. So far, we have not discovered a motive or conspirator.
“The bureau’s priority is to determine if anyone assisted the shooter and eliminate any lingering threats,” said Michael Harrigan, a former FBI special agent who led the office’s firearms education unit in Quantico, Virginia.
“From an investigation standpoint, it doesn’t matter what happened to the president,” he added.
This is very much from a political point of view.
“As far as former President Trump is concerned, there is a question as to whether it was a bullet or a piece of shrapnel that hit his ear,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the chairman of the Judicial Branch of the House. Committee, Wednesday.
This led to a backlash and continued Republican attacks on Wray.
“It’s shocking that Christopher Wray doesn’t know the facts, but that says more about his professional functionality — or lack thereof — than anything else,” Cheung said.
Chairman Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, told NBC on Thursday: “We’ve all noticed the video, we’ve noticed the analysis, we’ve heard from resources from other angles that a bullet went through his ear. »
“There’s a lot of frustration and fear about the direction of those agencies,” Johnson added.
The FBI said in a statement that the workplace “has been consistent and transparent that the shooting was an assassination attempt on former President Trump that resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims”.
It is not typical of the type of bullet Crooks fired from his AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle to fall from one end to the other and break after impacting even a small, forged object. Weapons experts say a fragment could, for example, have hit a steel pole.
Still, it’s possible that a bullet grazed Trump’s ear, and the FBI hasn’t ruled out that possibility. Investigators found 8 rifle casings on the ceiling, where the shooter was.
It’s unclear whether investigators have eliminated other potential debris resources, but analysts appear to be focusing on fragments of steel, rather than glass, from teleprompters at the scene. Photos of the teleprompters next to Trump show that they were intact after the bullets were fired.
FBI analysts also read through photographs and other electronic evidence for clues.
Gun experts said the FBI can rely simply on trajectory analysis, a physical examination of any similar bullets and the president’s wound to most likely figure out what happened.
The office may also get lucky and locate the former president’s DNA on a piece of bullet. But even that would not allow us to determine whether a fragment or the bullet hit him in the ear.
Investigators will most likely explore the scenario: The bullet, fatal but fragile, could have fragmented after grazing Trump’s ear.
“The challenge facing a bullet traveling at 3200 feet consistently with momentum is that it fragments very gently when it hits a surface before the target,” Harrigan said. “With fragmentation, it will be difficult to say with certainty what happened. »
This article gave the impression of being in the New York Times.