House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday pushed back against FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that former President Donald Trump may not have been hit directly with a bullet during the attempt on his life at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Wray, whom Trump nominated to head the FBI in 2017, testified Wednesday about his agency’s investigation into the assassination attempt, and 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.” He said the investigation into the shooting, which is being led by the FBI, is “very much ongoing.”
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. I’m not sure it matters that much,” Johnson said.
He 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.”
In a statement Thursday, the FBI said, “Since the day of the attack, the FBI 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."
"The FBI’s Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing,” the statement added.
The former president has not released any medical records from his treatment at the hospital after the shooting, and the doctors who treated him were not made available to answer questions. The Trump campaign did release a letter from Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a former White House physician.
Jackson 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!!!” he wrote in the post, with the last two sentences in all-capital letters.
Jackson said in the July 20 letter released by the 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,” the letter said, adding that there “was initially significant bleeding,” but given “the broad and blunt nature of the wound itself, no sutures were required.”
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., called Wray’s testimony “noteworthy,” and said Trump “owes it to the American people to be honest, and to say exactly what happened.”
“We have not seen any medical records. We have not had a an independent doctor other than a hyper-partisan, elected member of Congress comment on what happened,” Goldman said.
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 President 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!”
