FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate told lawmakers during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that “there never has been” any doubt that former President Donald Trump was hit in the ear by a bullet.
“There is absolutely no doubt in the FBI’s mind whether former president Trump was hit with a bullet and wounded in the ear. No doubt. There never has been,” Abbate told Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) after he asked Abbate if “there [is] any doubt, in your mind, or the collective mind of the FBI that President Trump was shot in the ear by a bullet?”
“I’ve been part of this investigation since the very beginning and that has never been raised,” Abbate added.
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Controversy around whether Trump was actually shot began when Abbate’s boss, FBI Director Christopher Wray, told Congress on July 24 that “there is some question about whether or not it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.” “So it is conceivable, as I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else,” Wray added.
The FBI told The Daily Beast in an emailed statement on July 26 that “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.”
Trump called the deputy’s statement the “best apology that we’ll get from Director Wray,” adding that “it is fully accepted” in a Truth Social post.
Commenters reacted to Abbate’s comments, claiming they contradict Wray’s testimony.
“Sounds like Wray lied under oath!” one wrote in an X post reacting to a video of Abbate’s testimony.
“Okay, but his boss, Wray, said different. Let’s be clear,” another wrote.
Abbate also told congress on Tuesday that a social media account discovered by the FBI, which may have belonged to Thomas Matthew Crooks, Trump’s shooter, had over 700 posts that “appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature.”
The FBI has yet to confirm whether the account in question belonged to Crooks.
Andrew Torba, the founder of the far-right favorite social media site Gab, wrote in a blog post on July 24 that Crooks may have been a user on his site after the FBI subpoenaed records from his site.
“Today Gab learned that Thomas Crooks, the deranged Joe Biden supporter who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump, may have had an account on our platform,” Torba wrote in the post. “We are unable to confirm that the account in question actually belonged to him, but have reason to believe it does after receiving an emergency disclosure request from a law enforcement agency.”
There is no indication so far that Crooks’ alleged Gab account was the user Abbate was referring to.
