▲ Donald Trump, who survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, during the 2024 presidential campaign.
U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on the 15th (local time) that "new information has just been discovered" regarding the assassination attempt against him when he was the Republican presidential nominee in 2024.
Writing on his social media platform Truth Social that day, President Trump asserted, "When I took office on January 20 (of last year), most of the information was either missing, altered, tampered with, or destroyed."
President Trump also stated, "Everyone knows that Crooked Joe Biden's FBI did not do what they were supposed to do regarding the maniac who shot me in Butler, Pennsylvania."
Questioning "why this new information was not discovered a long time ago," he further claimed, "This was all a Democratic plot to drive me out of the election, but it failed."
Earlier, on July 13, 2024, at the height of the U.S. presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump was grazed in the right ear by a bullet fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks from a nearby rooftop while campaigning in Butler, Pennsylvania.
President Trump suffered a bleeding injury but his life was not in danger, and Crooks was shot and killed at the scene.
President Trump did not specify what the 'new information' was.
However, he threatened then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, stating that he "should pay a price for the way he handled this assassination attempt and the statements he made."
The investigation into the incident at the time concluded that the crime was committed by Crooks alone.
No evidence linking the incident to the Democratic Party was found at the time.
In connection with this, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche explained during a White House briefing that day that the 'new information' consisted of "previously unknown facts regarding the shooter, his background, and his history," while declining to provide specific details.
Blanche stated that he was at the scene during the assassination attempt, claiming, "It was unclear what the FBI leadership was doing precisely to protect President Trump in the weeks and months leading up to the assassination attempt."
"At the same time, that very same organization was trying to put him in prison until he died," he claimed.
He added, "Therefore, the President's frustration and concerns about what the former FBI Director (Wray) was doing are nothing new," and said, "(Current FBI Director) Kash Patel has made a tremendous effort to thoroughly review all documents to identify any missed details and provide the American public with information that has not yet been disclosed, and he actually pulled it off."
(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
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