The Bureau is too busy being improperly political, the former president has suggested
Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has criticized the Federal Bureau of Investigation, accusing it of being politically motivated and incompetent.
During a congressional hearing on Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed uncertainty about whether Trump had been struck by a bullet or something else at a campaign rally two weeks prior.
“I think with respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s [a] bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray told the lawmakers.
Wray’s uncertainty about the bullet stood in contrast to his seemingly firm belief in President Joe Biden’s physical and cognitive fitness, until Biden withdrew from the race, Trump claimed in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, late on Thursday.
“That’s why he knows nothing about the terrorists and other criminals pouring into our country at record levels,” Trump continued. “His only focus is destroying J6 Patriots, raiding Mar-a-Lago, and saving Radical Left Lunatics, like the ones now in DC burning American flags and spray painting over our great National Monuments – with zero retribution.”
”No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!” the former president added.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered in Washington on Wednesday to protest the address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Some of them publicly burned the American flag, while others defaced several monuments with pro-Hamas slogans.
The FBI apprehended thousands of Trump supporters who protested outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Republicans attempted to block Biden’s declaration as the winner of the 2020 election, citing numerous irregularities. In August 2022, the agency raided Trump’s Florida residence in search of classified documents. The Supreme Court later ruled that prosecuting him for official acts was unconstitutional.
The Mar-a-Lago raid and the crackdown on January 6 protesters have been repeatedly cited as reasons why local and state law enforcement agencies across the US no longer trust the FBI, according to a report compiled by a group of current and former agents. The Bureau is increasingly perceived “as a partisan federal agency motivated by a political agenda,” said the report, which was presented to Congress earlier this week.
Dismissing Wray’s assertion as “wrong,” Trump insisted that it was indeed a bullet that had grazed his ear at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally. “There was no glass, there was no shrapnel,” Trump posted, adding that the FBI “never even checked” into it.
The notion that Trump may have been injured by something else, or not at all, has been a popular conspiracy theory among Democrats online. Some have claimed that he faked the ear injury, while others speculated that a shard from the teleprompter broke off and nicked the presidential candidate. Such rumors have persisted despite a New York Times photographer capturing the bloodied bullet as it flew past Trump and into the crowd behind him.