Donald Trump was hit by a bullet during the attempt on his life two weeks ago, a Dailymail.com analysis shows.
Evidence, including from forensic and ballistic experts, shows the former president was hit in the ear by the first of eight rounds fired by would-be assassin Thomas Crooks at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
It comes after FBI Director Christopher Wray told a congressional hearing on Wednesday there was ‘some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.’
Two weeks after the attack Trump appeared without a bandage on his right ear for the first time on Friday, and his former doctor said he is ‘rapidly recovering’.
Crooks, 20, used a PMS-brand AR rifle to shoot 5.56 ammunition in the assassination attempt.
Rounds fired from such a weapon can, if they hit something, splinter into fragments.
That led to speculation the bullet could have hit an object, like a metal bar supporting the stage or bleachers, with a piece of shrapnel then flying off and hitting Trump.
However, such a theory seems demonstrably wrong.
First, Crooks had a clear unobstructed line of sight at the president with no objects close to being in the way.
The path of the initial bullet was captured in a ‘one in a million’ photograph just after it had passed Trump’s head, and then in another piece of video hitting the bleachers directly behind him.
Analysis by forensic audio expert Steve Beck showed Trump grabbed his ear immediately after the ‘crack’ of the first bullet was picked up as it passed his microphone.
The ‘crack’ of the second bullet was then heard 0.867 seconds later, he told Dailymail.com.
In all Crooks got off eight shots in 5.2 seconds.
There was an initial volley of three rounds, then a brief pause when Trump hit the floor, followed by a more rapid burst of five shots.
Then, 0.3 seconds after Crooks’ eighth and final shot, a round was fired by a Secret Service agent from near the stage.
It appears to have incapacitated or killed Crooks as he stopped shooting.
Ten seconds later there was another shot from a different weapon, believed to have been fired by another Secret Service agent or law enforcement officer.
Audio analysis shows Crooks was 380ft away from where the sound of the bullets was picked up by Trump’s microphone.
After the first bullet proceeded beyond Trump it could be observed, in a video published by the New York Times, creating a puff as it thudded into the bleachers close to rally-goer David Dutch.
Dutch appeared to be hit by one of the follow-up shots in the first burst of three shots.
In the second burst of five shots rally-goer Corey Comperatore, a heroic father and firefighter, was killed as he shielded his family.
Beck said decreasing time gaps between shots showed the gunman appeared to have aimed most precisely with his first one.
The gap between the second and third shots went down to 0.67 seconds, and then even less.
‘The gunman had the best aim in the first shot so so you would expect it came closest to hitting,’ he said.
After the first three Crooks ‘re-aimed’ and then started ‘pulling the trigger as fast as he could.’
Beck said he did not hear the sound of the first bullet hitting any other object before Trump grabbed his ear.
However, if the bullet had hit something else first, then the sound would not have registered on Trump’s microphone because, at that moment, he would have still been talking.
In order for there to have been shrapnel, the FBI would need to discover that the bullet hit something ‘hard’ before reaching Trump, causing it to break up, ballistics expert Nathan Foster told Dailymail.com.
If that had happened, then the injury to Trump’s ear would be ‘jagged,’ tearing an ‘irregular shaped wound,’ rather than punching a hole though it, he said.
There was also no way to reconcile a shrapnel injury with the photograph of the bullet’s path taken by New York Times photographer Doug Mills.
Investigators found eight shell casings near Crooks’ body on the roof he fired from 380ft away.
FBI experts are expected to analyze the trajectory of the bullets as they put together a forensic picture of the shooting.
Another early theory was that a bullet could have hit one of the two glass teleprompter screens in front of Trump, with the former president then being hit by flying debris.
However, the teleprompters were visible and undamaged after the shots were fired.
Congressman Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former physician, lambasted Wray on Friday.
He said: ‘During the congressional hearing two days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that it could be a bullet, shrapnel, or glass.
‘There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet.
‘Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.’
He said Butler Memorial Hospital had treated Trump for what it called a ‘Gunshot Wound to the Right Ear.’
He added: ‘Based on my direct observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I completely concur with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the doctors and nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the shooting.’
Meanwhile, Trump on Friday appeared without a bandage on his ear for the first time since the shooting as he hosted Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago.
Expressing outrage with Wray, he said: ‘No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel.’