What exactly did the FBI say about how Trump was struck in the ear and when did it release that statement?
Executive summary
The FBI issued a concise, one-sentence public statement saying that what struck former President Donald Trump in the ear during the July 13 rally shooting was a bullet — “whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle” — language the agency released in a Friday statement to reporters as the bureau continued its investigation [1] [2]. The terse clarification followed earlier, more ambiguous congressional testimony by FBI Director Christopher Wray and days of public dispute about whether the wound was caused by a bullet or by shrapnel [2] [3].
1. What the FBI actually said, word for word
The agency’s Office of Public Affairs provided a single-sentence formulation that was widely quoted: “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,” language distributed to news organizations and republished across outlets [1] [4].
2. When the statement appeared and how it was framed by outlets
News organizations reported the FBI’s line on Friday evening, with outlets dating the bureau’s clarification to July 26 or describing it as a Friday statement amid reporting on July 26–27; several outlets described it as a short, definitive public clarification issued after earlier ambiguous testimony [3] [5] [2].
3. Why the FBI released the line — context from Wray’s testimony
The clarification came after Director Christopher Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that “there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that, you know, hit his ear,” comments that prompted political scrutiny and calls for a clearer public account of the former president’s injury [2] [6].
4. What the statement did — and did not — resolve
The FBI’s wording affirmed the object was a bullet or bullet fragment and tied it to the deceased shooter’s rifle, while also leaving open technical details — for example, the bureau said its Shooting Reconstruction Team continued to examine bullet fragments and other scene evidence, signaling the investigation and forensic work remained active [2] [6].
5. Competing accounts and political fallout
Republican allies, including Rep. Ronny Jackson and others who cared for or spoke for Trump, had insisted from the start that the wound was a bullet injury and criticized Wray’s earlier hedging; Trump himself tweeted that it was “unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard,” framing the FBI’s clarification as vindication even as critics questioned the timing [1] [4] [7]. The public dispute briefly evolved into a partisan controversy over whether the bureau’s testimony had been misleading or merely cautious [4] [8].
6. Limits of the public record and remaining questions
Despite the FBI’s direct sentence, several details remained unaddressed in the public record: specific medical reports from the hospital were not publicly released, the exact pathway of any fragment was under forensic review, and the bureau’s brief statement did not include supporting forensic detail or a full chain-of-evidence explanation — matters outlets explicitly noted while reporting the FBI’s conclusion [9] [2].
7. How different outlets framed the bureau’s clarity
Major news organizations treated the FBI line as the most definitive official account to date, publishing the one-sentence confirmation widely and situating it against Wray’s testimony and the ongoing shooting reconstruction work; some accounts emphasized the shortness of the statement and the ongoing forensic analysis, while others highlighted the political pushback that preceded the clarification [4] [6] [10].