FBI director Christopher Wray is facing a Republican backlash over his testimony that former president Donald Trump may have been hit by shrapnel during an assassination bid earlier this month.
Republicans rebuked Wray, appointed by Trump in 2017, for his remarks to the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee investigating the shooting.
When asked on Wednesday about his agency’s investigation into the shooting, Wray 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.”
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He said the investigation into the assassination attempt by Thomas Matthew Crooks on July 14 , which is being led by the FBI, is “very much ongoing.”
Earlier, Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris told the committee earlier that Crooks fired eight rounds during a Republican rally in Butler County before he was killed by counter-snipers.
Trump sustained a wound to his right ear. Corey Comperatore, 50, who was attending the rally died shielding his family from the shooter’s bullets.
Republican Representative Ronny Jackson, a former White House doctor, who examined Trump’s ear after the shooting, said Wray’s testimony was a “politically motived move”.
Jackson said in a post on X that the FBI director had “weaponised his office” to bring down Trump.
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In the wake of the shooting, Jackson said Trump sustained a gunshot wound to the right ear that came “less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear.”
The FBI was not involved in ensuring security for the rally and has therefore avoided the same level of scrutiny directed at the Secret Service over the lapses that preceded the event. On Tuesday, Kimberly Cheatle resigned as the agency’s director.
But Wray testified that his interactions had been “completely professional,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that the FBI director “has to resign, and NOW, for LYING TO CONGRESS!
– With Associated Press
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