According to CNN commentator and Kennedy School professor Juliette Kayyem, Donald Trump has the burden of proving that he was shot with a bullet during the attempt on his life at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
An assassin fired multiple shots at the former president. A bullet killed one man, and bullets severely injured two others, but some do not believe a bullet struck Trump; they think it was glass from a teleprompter.
FBI Director Christopher Wray was one of the first prominent figures to float this idea, saying that it may or may not have been a bullet. Kayyem seized on his words and ran with the theory on X, adding that it was up to Trump to prove it was a bullet (which may not be possible.)
However, considering he was fired upon, the burden of proof should be on those who say it was glass.
There has been a lack of information since the incident on July 13, and conspiracy theories have thrived on both sides of the political spectrum. Wray’s statement further infuriated Trump and his supporters. It hasn’t helped that Trump’s team has refused to make the physicians at the hospital that initially treated him available for interviews or to release any of his medical records.
After Director Wray’s vague remarks earlier in the week, the FBI has issued a one-sentence statement that was the most conclusive law enforcement description of Trump’s injuries to date, saying that what struck Trump’s ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragments.
For almost a year, beginning in 2009, Kayyem served as the Department of Homeland Security’s Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs. David Barron, a federal appeals judge in the First Circuit, is her husband.
There has been no word yet on whether Kayyem has retreated from her theory since the FBI’s statement.
According to Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former White House doctor and current physician, it would be irresponsible to imply that anything other than a bullet could have cut through Trump’s ear.
