FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during a marathon testimony on Wednesday that investigators still do not know if former President Donald Trump was grazed by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel during his attempted assassination.
Twice during the hours-long session, Wray told lawmakers that the FBI was still working to determine what exactly struck the former president on his right ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “My understanding is that either it [a bullet] or some shrapnel is what grazed his ear,” Wray told Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA).
No, the question is not whether he was shot at, or if he has a wound. The question is was his wound caused by a bullet or glass shrapnel.
Are there any actual pictures of the wound? Closest I’ve seen is an ear with blood on it, but none that show actual tissue damage.
[Tinfoil hat]As performative as the first pump n’ shit was, and as utterly devoid of morality as Trump is, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the assassination attempt was some sketchy shit like the gunman being paid to pop a few shots at a couple expendable cultists behind Trump, so that Trump could dive behind the podium where none of the cameras were pointed, pull a packet of red shit from his pocket and smash it onto his ear, then raise into his cheesey fucking first pump stance in the middle of a bunch of panicked security guards. …and backstab whatever deal was initially made with the gunman by just killing that loose end on the spot.[/Tinfoil hat]
^Theory completely debunked if anyone’s got a pic from that event that shows an actual chunk missing from his ear. A few folks have mentioned some of the articles included such pics, but so far I’ve come up empty - just pics of a 'blood’y ear at the event, and a bandaged ear after.
My theory is that [Tinfoil hat] there was a ketchup packet lodged in the rolls of his neck from lunch that day, and it popped when he was startled by the gunshots. He was unaware that he lost the condiment there, and it was unintentional. He genuinely thought it was blood until it trickled into his mouth, after which he raised his fist in relief, yelling “Heinz Heinz Heinz” to the crowd. [/Tinfoil hat]
He would have yelled Heinz repeatedly at the audience anyway.
Heinz Shitler
Add it to that list if nicknames.
Reposting from an earlier comment I made:
Expand for bloody ear photo
My favorite tinfoil hat theory is that one of the secret service members had a razor palmed, which they then used to slice his ear when they took him to ground. I’m not saying I believe that, of course, but it seems the most plausible to me.
Here's a photo of the same ear taken sometime on or before Jan 2019.
Edit to add: Armchair analysis. Maybe it sorta looks like some of the helix (both tubercle and crus sides) flesh is missing from a graze, here?
Expand for a bloody ear photo with lines drawn on it
That’s definitely the best I’ve seen so far. Wish we had more angles - looking straight on, it’s hard to assess if chunks are missing, or if that’s just how the red shit dried.
I don’t get how the blood managed to streak all the way down his face so quickly but then appears to have stopped bleeding by the time this photo was taken. Blood follows gravity so if it was gushing enough to reach his chins during the few moments he was kneeling down behind the podium, why isn’t it now draining down toward his shoulder?
It is was probably transferred from his ear to chin/cheek by something like the floor, his hand or SS. That’d explain why there isn’t a trail and it appears blotchy.
Very thin blood vessels in the ears, so they’ll bleed a bit quickly, but then also congeal rather fast.
I couldn’t care less about the facts of this, but bleeding from ears is quite like that, yea
I saw reports right after the incident that a bullet hit Trump’s teleprompter and sent broken glass flying, a shard of of which hit Trump’s ear. No idea where this “info” came from if even now, the FBI says it doesn’t know. You’d think they’d have done enough forensics to find out by now, but whatever. Is there even a shattered teleprompter?
Yea, but I don’t think this is worth an article - it might be illuminative to secret service tactics or inform how campaign stands should be constructed but Trump was injured as a result of a gun shot. The article posing this question was probably completely unnecessary and was absolutely needlessly sensationalized.
I think it’s worthy of an article because I remember hearing initially, right after the shooting, that it wasn’t quite known if he was actually hit by a bullet or shrapnel. This tells me this is still the case and there hasn’t been a definitive answer given.
I wonder if the doctors who treated him know? Is it possible to determine based on the injury if it was a bullet vs shrapnel?
There’s video footage and a known location of the spot the guy shot from.
All this hesitation is telling me is that it’s confirmed it was not a bullet but Trump likes saying it is and they don’t feel like pushing against it.
As far as I can tell from the video there’s not a moment where a bullet coming from his far right (heh) could have grazed his ear (that’s particoularly close to his skull) without piercing his skull. He never turns that much to the right.
I don’t think so, unless they found a piece of glass in his ear. Word on the street is a teleprompter, but I don’t know if there’s even any evidence of that. Or of anything else being hit and becoming shrapnel. That would really be the way to tell.
Ya save it for the documentary or deep dive into the whole shebang