A photo released yesterday shows Donald Trump’s ear was not injured in the assassination attempt, which is evidence it was faked.
This is an old photo of Mr Trump from 2017, and so it predates the attempted assassination in which his ear was injured.
A photo of former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump is being shared online with the claim it’s a recent photo—allegedly proving an assassination attempt on his life was “fake”.
The photo is of the side of Mr Trump’s face and magnifies his right ear. Overlaid text says: “This was an image from Team Trump released yesterday, showing his right ear. Where’s the scar or sutures from being hit in the ear?”
Mr Trump’s right ear was injured in an attempted assassination at a rally in Pennsylvania, on 13 July. One member of the audience, Corey Comperatore, was killed and two others, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, were seriously injured.
However, this is not a recent photo shared by his team “yesterday”, as claimed. The photo dates back to 2017 and shows then-President Trump on the phone to then-Taoiseach (the Irish Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar in the Oval Office of the White House.
Mr Trump was treated at Butler Memorial Hospital for his ear wound and wrote in a post on his own social media network Truth Social that he was hit with a “bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear”.
While medical records of his treatment have not yet been released, Republican Congressman for Texas and former White House physician, Ronny Jackson, reportedly said the “2 cm-wide gunshot wound” did not require sutures. Mr Trump’s son, Eric Trump said he had not had any stitches. Mr Trump was seen at subsequent engagements with a bandage over his ear.
We’ve seen other examples of misinformation supporting the theory that the assassination attempt was staged, including another image of Mr Trump with an uninjured ear that predates the shooting. As we’ve written before, we have seen no evidence to support these theories.
Images being shared in a misleading or false way is a common type of misinformation seen online—our guide shares tips on how to spot this yourself.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the photo was taken in 2017 and predates the assassination attempt.
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