“Did you see the FBI today apologised?” he asked. “It just never ends with these people. ... We accept their apology.”

Trump appeared for the first time without a bandage on his right ear. Photographs and video showed no sign of continued bleeding, and no distinct holes or gashes.

Questions about the extent and nature of Trump’s wound began immediately after the attack, as his campaign and law enforcement officials declined to answer questions about his condition or the treatment he received after Trump narrowly escaped death in an attempted assassination by a gunman with a high-powered rifle.

Those questions have persisted despite photographs showing the trace of a projectile speeding past Trump’s head as well as Trump’s teleprompter glass intact after the shooting, and the account Trump himself gave in a Truth Social post within hours of the shooting that he had been “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”

“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” he wrote.

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Days later, in a speech accepting the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump recounted the scene in detail, while wearing a large gauze bandage over his right ear.

“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard, on my right ear. I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet,’” he said.

But the first medical account of Trump’s condition didn’t come until a full week after the shooting, when Jackson released his first letter last weekend. In it, he said the bullet that struck Trump had “produced a 2 centimetre wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.” He also revealed Trump had received a CT scan at the hospital.

Federal law enforcement involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, had declined to confirm that account. And Wray’s testimony offered apparently conflicting answers on the issue.

“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray said, before he seemed to suggest it was indeed a bullet.

Earlier on Friday, Trump had met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the former US president’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the first face to face meeting in nearly four years. Netanyahu told journalists after the meeting he wanted to see US-mediated talks succeed for a ceasefire and release of hostages.

“I hope so,” Netanyahu said, when reporters asked if his US trip had made progress. While Netanyahu at home is increasingly accused of resisting a deal to end the 9-month-old war to stave off the potential collapse of his far-right government when it ends, he said Friday he was “certainly eager to have one. And we’re working on it.”

As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahu’s top wishes from the United States. Yet relations soured after Netanyahu became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden for his 2020 presidential victory, which Trump continues to deny.

The two men now have a strong interest in restoring their relationship, both for the political support their alliance brings and for the luster it gives each with their conservative supporters.

A beaming Trump was waiting for Netanyahu on the stone steps outside his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

“We’ve always had a great relationship,” Trump insisted before journalists. Asked as the two sat down for talks if Netanyahu’s trip to Mar-a-Lago was repairing their bond, Trump responded, “It was never bad.”

AP

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