Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a former White House physician with direct knowledge of Donald Trump’s wounded right ear, disputes FBI Director Christopher Wray
‘s questioning of whether a bullet struck the former president in the assassination attempt.
Wray said that “there’s some question” whether Trump got hit by “a bullet or shrapnel” during the July 13 assassination attempt
in testimony Wednesday to the House Judiciary Committee about the FBI’s investigation of the shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Jackson released a statement Friday saying there is “absolutely no evidence” anything other than a bullet injured Trump’s upper right ear
.
“During the Congressional Hearing two days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that it could be a bullet, shrapnel, or glass,” Jackson wrote. “There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet. Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.”
Jackson said he has treated many gunshot wounds throughout his 20-year career as an emergency medicine physician in the Navy and as a combat physician in Iraq.
He wrote that he can “completely concur” with the initial assessment and treatment provided to Trump at Butler Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for a gunshot wound to the ear.
Wray testified to the House Judiciary Committee
that Trump’s would-be assassin, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, used a semiautomatic AR-15-style rifle with a collapsible stock during the shooting. Trump, surrounded by Secret Service agents, exited the rally with blood dripping down his face.
“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, that hit his ear,” Wray testified Wednesday. “As I sit here right now, I don’t know if that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, also could have landed somewhere else.”
A photograph taken during the shooting by The New York Times’ Doug Mills shows a bullet flying directly by the right side of Trump’s head just moments before he began bleeding.
Crooks fired eight rounds, killing former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore and wounding two other rally attendees, authorities said. The gunman climbed onto the roof of a building unoccupied by authorities and 130 feet away from the rally stage.
The Secret Service and the FBI
told lawmakers Wednesday that authorities noticed Crooks approximately 50 minutes before Trump came onstage. One source told senators that Crooks was spotted with a rangefinder, while others said they saw him standing on the rooftop with a firearm about 20 minutes before bullets were fired.
Bipartisan questions about how the incident occurred led former Secret Service
Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign from the agency Tuesday following a tense hearing Monday before the House Oversight Committee.
Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and ranking member Jamie Raskin,D-Md., issued a joint statement Monday following the hearing calling for Cheatle’s resignation and stating that she “failed to provide answers” about the “stunning operational failure” during the rally.
MSNBC’s Michael Steele and Ari Melber both raised questions about the details of Trump’s wounded ear. Steele said July 16 that “a lot of questions” surround Trump’s injury, while Melber suggested the bandage on the ear was a “political quest” to gain sympathy and clout.
In a July 17 post on Threads, MSNBC anchor Joy Reid suggested that flying glass may have injured Trump.
The FBI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a former White House physician with direct knowledge of Donald Trump’s wounded right ear, disputes FBI Director Christopher Wray
‘s questioning of whether a bullet struck the former president in the assassination attempt.
Wray said that “there’s some question” whether Trump got hit by “a bullet or shrapnel” during the July 13 assassination attempt
in testimony Wednesday to the House Judiciary Committee about the FBI’s investigation of the shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Jackson released a statement Friday saying there is “absolutely no evidence” anything other than a bullet injured Trump’s upper right ear
.
“During the Congressional Hearing two days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that it could be a bullet, shrapnel, or glass,” Jackson wrote. “There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet. Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.”
Jackson said he has treated many gunshot wounds throughout his 20-year career as an emergency medicine physician in the Navy and as a combat physician in Iraq.
He wrote that he can “completely concur” with the initial assessment and treatment provided to Trump at Butler Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for a gunshot wound to the ear.
Wray testified to the House Judiciary Committee
that Trump’s would-be assassin, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, used a semiautomatic AR-15-style rifle with a collapsible stock during the shooting. Trump, surrounded by Secret Service agents, exited the rally with blood dripping down his face.
“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, that hit his ear,” Wray testified Wednesday. “As I sit here right now, I don’t know if that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, also could have landed somewhere else.”
A photograph taken during the shooting by The New York Times’ Doug Mills shows a bullet flying directly by the right side of Trump’s head just moments before he began bleeding.
Crooks fired eight rounds, killing former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore and wounding two other rally attendees, authorities said. The gunman climbed onto the roof of a building unoccupied by authorities and 130 feet away from the rally stage.
The Secret Service and the FBI
told lawmakers Wednesday that authorities noticed Crooks approximately 50 minutes before Trump came onstage. One source told senators that Crooks was spotted with a rangefinder, while others said they saw him standing on the rooftop with a firearm about 20 minutes before bullets were fired.
Bipartisan questions about how the incident occurred led former Secret Service
Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign from the agency Tuesday following a tense hearing Monday before the House Oversight Committee.
Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and ranking member Jamie Raskin,D-Md., issued a joint statement Monday following the hearing calling for Cheatle’s resignation and stating that she “failed to provide answers” about the “stunning operational failure” during the rally.
MSNBC’s Michael Steele and Ari Melber both raised questions about the details of Trump’s wounded ear. Steele said July 16 that “a lot of questions” surround Trump’s injury, while Melber suggested the bandage on the ear was a “political quest” to gain sympathy and clout.
In a July 17 post on Threads, MSNBC anchor Joy Reid suggested that flying glass may have injured Trump.
The FBI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A newly resurfaced memo put out by Vice President Kamala Harris’
2020 presidential campaign outlines her plan to “fundamentally transform” the criminal justice system by reducing penalties for criminals.
In 2019, Harris promised to end cash bail, get rid of court-ordered fines, expunge the records of some felons, discontinue federal mandatory minimum sentences and to place greater federal scrutiny on local police departments, according to a memo resurfaced Thursday by the Washington Free Beacon.
While Harris has previously supported weakening law enforcement, her campaign is preparing to present her to voters as a law and order candidate in contrast to former President Donald Trump
, CNN reported.
“It is long past time to re-envision public safety by strengthening and supporting our communities and drastically limiting the number of people we expose to our criminal justice system,” the memo reads. “As president, Kamala will fundamentally transform how we approach public safety.”
Nearly 60% of Americans surveyed in January, including roughly half of Democrats
, said that the president and Congress should make addressing crime a priority, according to the Pew Research Center. A similar proportion of registered voters, 61%, told Pew in April that the criminal justice system is not tough enough on criminals.
“Excessive cash bail disproportionately harms people from low-income communities and communities of color,” Harris’ 2019 memo reads. She characterized cash bail systems as “criminalizing poverty” and vowed to end them.
Ending cash bail has led to a backlash in some major cities, with New Yorkers in February 2022 overwhelmingly supporting tightening bail laws following an increase in crime, the New York Post reported. The Texas Organizing Project, a George Soros-backed nonprofit that opposes cash bail, bonded out a man who allegedly went on to murder six people and shoot three others in December 2023.
“In addition, we need to eliminate court fees and fees associated with diversion, treatment, or community supervision that make it harder for individuals to reintegrate into society,” Harris’ memo continued.
The memo no longer appears on Harris’ campaign website, though it remains on the vice president’s Medium page.
Harris also promised to automatically remove “offenses that are not serious or violent” from criminals’ records after five years, according to the memo. The memo does not define what a “serious” offense is.
She also supported restoring voting rights
to all those who have served criminal records, per the memo, and advocated for more federal oversight of local police departments, citing alleged “racial profiling” and “excessive force.”
The now-Vice President proposed a “National Police Systems Review Board” that “would collect data and review police shootings
and other cases of severe misconduct,” according to the memo. She also promised to provide the Department of Justice with resources to provide grants to fund greater scrutiny of officers who shoot suspects, and pledged to reinstate an executive order restricting the sale of certain military equipment to police departments.
Harris’ support for weakening law enforcement extends beyond one campaign memo.
In 2020, she praised the defund the police movement during a radio interview for “rightly” calling out the amount of money spent on police departments, CNN reported. Harris also lauded Los Angeles for cutting its police department’s budget by $150 million, according to the NYP.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
