US President Donald Trump [Getty Images]
US President Donald Trump [Getty Images]

Donald Trump said Tuesday (local time) that most information related to the 2024 assassination attempt against him had been hidden or destroyed by the time he took office, reviving allegations against the FBI under the previous administration.

"New information has just been found," Trump wrote on his Truth Social account, adding that when he was inaugurated on Jan. 20 last year, "most of the information was missing, manipulated, compromised or gone."

Trump also said "everyone knows that Crooked Joe Biden's FBI did not do what they were supposed to do with respect to the person who shot me in Butler, Pennsylvania."

He did not specify what the "new information" was.

Trump said former FBI Director Christopher Wray "must pay a price for the way he handled this assassination attempt and for the statements he made."

He questioned why the information "wasn't found long ago," and said the entire matter was "a Democrat conspiracy to get me out of the election — but it failed."

Attorney General Todd Blanche, speaking at a White House briefing, said only that the "new information" concerned "the shooter and his background and history — facts that were not previously known."

Trump has faced three shooting threats in two years

Trump was shot at on July 13, 2024, while campaigning as the Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired about eight rounds from a rooftop 200 to 300 yards (about 183 to 274 meters) from the stage, striking Trump in the upper right ear.

Images of Trump — blood on his ear and face — raising a clenched fist as Secret Service agents rushed him off the stage were broadcast around the world.

Just two months later, on Sept. 15, 2024, another assassination attempt was foiled at a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.

A man pointed a firearm at Trump while he was playing golf at his own course.

The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, was shot by Secret Service agents and fled before being arrested. He was later found to have been hiding near the golf course for about 12 hours.

A shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner venue in April was also suspected to have been an assassination attempt targeting Trump, who attended the event.

In all, Trump has faced direct shooting threats on three separate occasions over the past two years.


yul@heraldcorp.com