FBI Director Christopher Wray appeared to downplay the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump by casting doubt on whether he was actually hit by a bullet.
Wray made the suggestion twice during his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
On its website, the committee said, it wanted to “examine the FBI’s investigation into the assassination attempt against President Trump and the ongoing politicization of the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency under the direction of FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland.”
At one point, Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley of California asked, “Director Wray, to the best of your understanding, how close did the assassin’s bullet come to killing President Trump?”
Wray replied, “My understanding is that either it or some shrapnel is what, you know, grazed his ear, so I don’t know that I have the actual distance.”
Killey interjected, “Very, very close, you would agree?”
“Yes,” Wray said.
In today’s hearing, Dir Wray made sure to suggest that shrapnel may have caused President Trump’s injury. TWICE. Disgraceful.
“either [the bullet] or some shrapnel is what grazed his ears”
“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear” pic.twitter.com/T1KuYircaS
— K Fitton (@KelFitton) July 25, 2024
At another point, House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan asked Wray to account for all the bullets fired during the Trump assassination attempt.
Do you stand with Trump?
“Where did all eight bullets go is, I guess, my question,” the Republican congressman from Ohio said.
“I don’t have that in front of me,” Wray said, before repeating his speculation that Trump may not have been hit by a bullet.
“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,” he said.
“I don’t know right now whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have landed somewhere else,” he continued.
It’s unclear whether Wray meant to downplay Trump’s injury, but the FBI director’s choice of wording sounded like that.
Regardless, it’s appalling that almost two weeks after the assassination attempt, Wray has no idea whether the former president was hit by a bullet or by shrapnel.
Even more alarming is the stonewalling from the Secret Service, which has to yet to explain the multiple, egregious security failures that led to Trump getting shot in the first place.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether he was hit by a bullet or by shrapnel, because he could have died either way.
While Americans struggle to buy groceries, billions of tax dollars are forked over to the FBI ($11 billion) and the Secret Service ($3 billion) every year. Yet neither agency can account for what happened on July 13.
If you can’t understand what caused a problem, you can’t prevent it from happening again. That is deeply concerning, especially during an election year.
Every day, our incompetent federal government proves it’s a bloated swamp that needs be drained — and quickly.
