“Trump’s Bloody Ear: Staged Spectacle or Real Assassination?”

The Myth of the Bullet Graze and the Making of a Martyr

“Trump’s Bloody Ear: Staged Spectacle or Real Assassination?”

The Myth of the Bullet Graze and the Making of a Martyr

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #504: Monday, August 25th, 2025.

I’m bringing Butler back up for a reason. The story has already faded into the background noise of American politics…swallowed up by newer scandals and distractions.

And yet millions of Americans don’t seem to realize the truth: this event has never been adequately investigated in the public square.

If something has been done behind closed doors…the public has seen almost none of the findings. We’ve been handed a few neat press releases…a few sanitized timelines… and told to move along. That’s not closure. That’s narrative management.

And in light of the corruption staring us in the face right now…the Epstein coverup… the stonewalling…the vanishing documents…the endless non-answers…how can we afford to let Butler slide into memory?

We can’t.

The minute we start treating events cloaked in secrecy as “yesterday’s news,” we’ve given up one of our most powerful weapons: collective vigilance.

That’s why I’m putting this back on the table. Because moments like Butler don’t just vanish; they fester.

If we let them disappear from our awareness…the people who profit from secrecy and spin win by default. The only antidote is to drag these stories back into the light… again and again…until the answers match the questions.

Imagine this.

A man with a rifle scales a rooftop…dead in Trump’s sightline. The trigger’s pulled. The crowd screams. Blood on the candidate’s ear. Secret Service swarm.

The next day…America wakes to the headline: “Trump survives assassination attempt.”

But here’s the gut-punch question that almost no one…outside the cynical and the professionally paranoid…is asking:

Did Donald Trump really survive an assassin’s bullet… or did he survive a carefully staged piece of political theater?

Before you scoff…hang with me. Because when you strip away the headlines…the PR statements…and the official FBI narrative…what’s left looks less like an “almost tragedy” and more like a controlled spectacle designed to boost a failing strongman at a critical moment.

Look…I get it. People don’t want to believe the ugly possibility. It’s easier to say: “Hey, crazy lone gunman, bad luck, Trump got lucky, end of story.”

But think of your own gut instinct.

Think of the photos of his bloodied ear…superficial…dramatic…but hardly catastrophic.

Think of the absurd security lapse that let a shooter perch on a roof. Think of the instant pivot to the “bullet graze” narrative…repeated across every outlet before any independent medicals were verified.

We’ve been here before.

Politicians from Caesar to Putin have understood the power of the staged wound…the near-miss…the almost-martyrdom.

Nothing galvanizes a base like the idea their leader is divinely protected…chosen by fate…bulletproof not by Kevlar but by destiny itself.

The Anatomy of the Butler Hypothesis

Let’s put this under the harsh light of direct-response analysis.

Step One: The Threat.

The shooter gets into position. Impossible? Not really…unless you know how Secret Service normally secures rooftops. Unless you know the multiple rings of protection that are supposed to make this scenario a fantasy…not a reality.

The fact that Crooks was able to line up a shot wasn’t just improbable. It was either the result of historic incompetence…or the quiet decision to let a man climb a ladder and stay there long enough to squeeze off rounds.

Step Two: The Wound.

Trump’s ear is bloodied. Cameras catch it. The image rockets around the globe. But let’s look closely:

A 5.56 NATO round fired from an AR-style rifle…at that range… would have blown half his ear away and potentially opened his skull. Instead…we get a superficial graze…no loss of consciousness…no emergency surgery.

That wound is perfect…graphic enough to scream “assassination attempt!” but minor enough to let him wave his fist in defiance minutes later.

Step Three: The Narrative.

Initial confusion (“shot in the head,” “grazed by bullet,” “hit by shrapnel”) is quickly scrubbed into the clean line: “He was struck directly by a bullet.”

This becomes the official story…reinforced by FBI…repeated by doctors…sealed in the April 2025 medical report.

Why insist on “bullet strike” instead of “fragment” or “debris”? Because bullet is bigger…scarier…more heroic.

Debris doesn’t make you a martyr. A bullet does.

Step Four: The Political Payoff.

Within 48 hours…Trump’s poll numbers spike. His base rallies. Critics are silenced. Media time shifts away from Epstein…scandals…indictments. The man who looked like he was stumbling becomes the man who “cheated death.”

That’s not tragedy. That’s branding.

The Security Anomalies: Incompetence… or Permission?

Ask anyone who’s ever worked detail for the Secret Service and they’ll tell you:

Rooftops matter.

High-angle positions are scanned…secured…sealed. A guy with a ladder…a backpack, and a rifle doesn’t just happen to get up there.

Yet in Butler…Pennsylvania…that’s exactly what we were told happened.

• Shooter Thomas Crooks scaled a building roof within a hundred yards of the stage.

• Spectators spotted him and shouted warnings. Some waved…some screamed.

• Secret Service seemed paralyzed. For long minutes…Crooks remained perched… weapon ready…before opening fire.

That’s not “oops.” That’s not “bad luck.” That’s either:

1. Incredible incompetence…which would demand mass firings and resignations.

2. Or intentional permission…a covert blind spot left open so an “attempt” could unfold.

And what happened after the shots?

Crooks was killed on-site. No interrogation. No discovery of networks. The threat was erased instantly…story sealed by his corpse. Convenient.

Secret Service Protocol vs. Butler Reality

What’s Supposed to Happen

When gunfire erupts near a protectee…the Service runs the same script every single time:

1. Cover and Evacuate: The protectee is slammed down and rushed off the stage…seconds…not minutes.

2. Form the Shield: Human wall of agents…torsos out…weapons drawn.

3. Neutralize Shooter: Counter Assault Team (CAT) engages.

4. Disappear the Protectee: Into the SUV…into the safe zone.

Former agent Tim McCarthy (shot shielding Reagan in 1981) put it bluntly: “We’re trained to cover and evacuate the president.” That’s doctrine.

What Happened in Butler

The DHS Independent Review Panel reconstructs the Butler stage:

• T + 1:24: Trump finally begins to walk off stage…surrounded by a body bunker of agents. His head and torso remain visible at points. At the SUV…he turns back to the crowd…raises his fist for two full seconds.

• T + 2:07: Only then…is Trump secured inside the SUV.

Compare this to Reagan in ’81: covered and gone in under 3 seconds.

The panel also documents that:

• Crooks was ID’d as suspicious 90 minutes before shots.

• At least nine Service personnel were informed before the rally.

• Detail leadership controlling Trump’s movements was never told…even after reports Crooks was on the roof minutes before.

Bottom line:

Doctrine says “cover and evacuate.” Butler looked more like “delay and display.”

The Ballistics Red Flag

A 5.56 NATO round at that range doesn’t “nick.” It mauls. Trauma surgeons call it “energy so massive your body will literally tear apart.” (Dr. Babak Sarani, George Washington University Hospital)

Yet Trump’s injury was described as:

• A superficial edge wound to the upper ear.

• Minimal bleeding.

• Immediate recovery…fist pump…no surgery beyond basic dressing.

Forensic ballistics expert Peter Diaczuk was blunt: “Bullet or shrapnel, both are going to rip the ear apart.” Yet recent photos analyzed by board-certified plastic surgeon Frederick Weniger show “a well-healed wound … no clear indication of reconstructive surgery.”

If that was an intact AR round grazing…it’s the neatest miracle in wound ballistics history.

The Medical Community’s Distrust

Even among mainstream physicians…the White House version of events hasn’t fully landed.

Sanjay Gupta, MD (CNN neurosurgeon):

“A full public assessment of Trump’s injuries is necessary … for voters.”

Anthony Fauci, MD:

“It seems to have been a superficial wound to the ear, and that’s all.”

Terry Dubrow, MD (plastic surgeon):

Trump might need a “‘missing parts’ surgery,” reconstructive in nature.

Frederick Weniger, MD (plastic surgeon):

Photos show “a well-healed wound … no clear indication” of surgery.

Peter Diaczuk (forensic ballistics):

“Bullet or shrapnel, both are going to rip the ear apart.”

Even the AP/STAT noted: “Trump’s medical team has yet to release detailed records … experts said there could still be outstanding questions.”

Translation: the official narrative demands more faith than fact.

The Rapid Narrative Lockdown

Remember the fog of those first hours?

• “Shot in the head.”

• “Grazed by bullet.”

• “Hit by shrapnel.”

Within 24 hours…the mess was scrubbed to one phrase: “Struck by a bullet.” Repeated until it hardened. By April 2025…sealed in a medical memo.

That isn’t organic confusion settling into clarity. That’s narrative discipline.

Covert-Op Scenarios: Three Possibilities

Controlled Shooter Exposure:

Crooks allowed into position to create real gunfire but limit Trump’s true risk.

Modified Ammunition

Rifle sabotaged or altered…yielding fragments not intact rounds.

After-the-Fact Enhancement

Wound from debris…spun as “bullet graze” for political theater.

Historical Precedents

Mussolini:

Survived multiple suspicious “attempts,” each time rallying nationalist fervor.

Putin:

Has leveraged “foiled plots” to portray himself as untouchable.

Reagan:

Became more popular after Hinckley’s shot…but his Service followed the manual: shield…evacuate…no stagecraft.

Trump’s bloody ear and raised fist?
It was less Reagan 1981 and more Mussolini 1926.

The Myth-Making Machine

Strip away the talking points…and what happened in Butler wasn’t just an assassination attempt. It was myth creation.

Think about the optics: a bloodied…defiant Trump raising his fist to the crowd… captured by every camera angle…looped on every network. That’s not what survival looks like. That’s what branding looks like.

And the people running the show knew it. They understood the simple truth every great marketing executive knows: symbols beat statistics.

One photo of a bloodied ear and a clenched fist does more to harden loyalty than a thousand speeches.

What If It Wasn’t What It Seemed?

Now, I can already hear the objections: “But Jack, come on…he was shot…it was on video… it was real!”

Yes…bullets were fired. Yes…a man died. Yes…Trump bled.

But those facts don’t disprove the hypothesis…they sharpen it. Because covert ops don’t rely on fakery; they rely on manipulating outcomes.

• Allow the shooter into position.

• Delay the extraction.

• Amplify the wound.

• Lock down the narrative.

It’s not about making something up. It’s about shaping reality into a story the crowd can swallow whole.

Why It Matters

Here’s the ugly truth: staged or not…Butler worked.

• Trump’s poll numbers spiked.

• His base was electrified.

• The media narrative shifted overnight from scandals to survival.

And like any great ad campaign…once the image is burned into the collective brain…it sticks. He’s no longer just a candidate. He’s the man who stood in the rain of bullets and raised his fist.

That’s how authoritarian myths are born. They don’t need to be true. They just need to be believed.

So What Do We Do With This?

Here’s where I need you to stop being a passive reader and start being an active fighter.

If you shrug your shoulders…they win. If you treat Butler as a fluke…they win. If you buy the “bullet graze” narrative without question…they win.

But if you share the doubt…spread the analysis…and hammer the holes in the story… you puncture the balloon they’re trying to float.

Because myth only works if it goes unchallenged.

The Butler Dossier

Section 1: Timeline Anomalies

What was reported publicly:

• Crooks was spotted by spectators with a rifle on the roof about two minutes before shots were fired. Shouts, pointing, frantic hand gestures were caught on multiple cell phone videos.

• Secret Service personnel reportedly received information as early as 90 minutes before the shooting that someone suspicious was lingering near that rooftop.

What stands out in the logs and reconstructions:

• 5:44 PM: Radio chatter flags Crooks using a rangefinder. Nine Service personnel are aware.

• 6:11 PM: Trump’s team is never directly informed of the rooftop risk.

• 6:15–6:18 PM: Spectators again raise alarms…this time pointing directly at Crooks visible on the roof.

• 6:19 PM: First shots fired.

The anomaly:

If detail leadership didn’t know…why not? If they did know…why was Trump still allowed to take the stage? These aren’t seconds lost in chaos. These are minutes… even an hour…of warnings that didn’t translate into action.

Section 2: Weapon Discrepancies

Initial reports:

• Local news and police scanners referred to a “.223-caliber” weapon (a common shorthand for AR-15 rifles chambered in 5.56 NATO).

• Later FBI briefings standardized it as an “AR-platform rifle,” but the caliber specifics disappeared from the official releases.

Why this matters:

• .223 Remington and 5.56 NATO are dimensionally similar but not identical…and performance differs.

• Confusion could be sloppy reporting… or it could signal that Crooks’ weapon was not what later narratives insisted.

• If altered ammo or a non-standard chambering was used…it could explain why Trump’s wound looked more like a fragment strike than a direct grazing by a full-powered AR round.

Section 3: Forensic & Medical Doubts

Quotes that never made it into the official narrative:

• Dr. Babak Sarani (trauma surgeon): “That energy is so massive your body will literally tear apart.” (On AR-15 wounds generally.)

• Peter Diaczuk (forensic ballistics expert): “Bullet or shrapnel, both are going to rip the ear apart … passing by at a relatively high rate of speed.”

• Plastic surgeon Frederick Weniger, MD, reviewing photos: The ear “appears to be a well-healed wound … no clear indication of reconstructive surgery.”

• Anonymous trauma surgeon (off record): “That wasn’t a clean bullet graze.”

Put bluntly:

The physics of an AR-15 bullet don’t match the photos of Trump’s ear months later. You can’t square “high-velocity graze” with “tiny nick…healed smooth.”

Section 4: The Optics vs. Protocol Gap

• Secret Service protocol says “cover and evacuate in seconds.” Reagan was gone in three.

• In Butler, Trump is still visible on stage over a minute after shots were fired.

• He raises his fist twice…once on stage…once before getting in the SUV.

• The Independent Review Panel confirms his head and torso were exposed during extraction.

Translation:

Standard operating procedure was not followed. Yet the result was the single most iconic campaign photo Trump has ever had.

Section 5: What It All Adds Up To

• Multiple missed warnings.

• Conflicting weapon reports.

• Medical experts doubting the wound profile.

• Secret Service choreography off-script.

Individually…maybe they’re explainable. Together? They paint a picture not of chaos… but of curated spectacle.

Just Who?

This is what you won’t see in the press briefings or the White House memos. This is the connective tissue between anomalies.

Ask yourself: Who benefited most from Butler?

• Crooks is dead.

• Trump emerges a martyr.

• The base rallies.

• The scandals fade.

Whether by negligence…manipulation…or covert allowance…Butler wasn’t just a near-assassination. It was narrative gold. And they spun it exactly that way.

[Stay with me. Share carefully. Use this dossier as inoculation against the myth-making machine.]

The Most Important Part

To you; you’re not here to be entertained. You’re here to be equipped. Equipped with words…with clarity…with courage.

When your friends parrot the official line…you’ll know the counter.
When your family shrugs it off…you’ll have the receipts.
When the next stage-managed spectacle comes…and it will…you’ll already be inoculated.

But only if you stay engaged. Only if you stay pissed. Only if you keep leaning into the discomfort.

BONUS Section

The Forensics They Don’t Want to Talk About

I wasn’t going to add this…but you’ve come this far…and my job is to make sure you leave here with more than the headlines. So here’s a piece of the forensic puzzle almost nobody’s talking about.

Forget the ear wound for a second. Forget the security lapses. Let’s go into the physics of sound and shell casings…the things that don’t lie as easily as a press release.

The Sound of the Shots

On multiple cellphone recordings from the Butler rally…you can hear the gunfire.

What trained ears noticed immediately is that the spacing between the shots doesn’t match what you’d expect from a semi-automatic rifle being fired in real time from that roof.

Cadence Issue:

Some shots sound closer together than the mechanical reset time of the AR-15 platform.

That suggests either (1) the recordings were overlapping echoes off structures (possible…but unlikely given angles), or (2) more than one weapon was discharging.

Directional Acoustics:

Crowd members nearest the right side of the stage report hearing shots “behind them” rather than purely from the rooftop angle.

That could be chaos…or it could be evidence of multiple sources of fire.

Acousticians know this: triangulating shots from crowd videos is messy but possible. And if independent analysts ever run full waveform analysis on the Butler clips…we may find the auditory record doesn’t line up neatly with “one shooter…one roof…one AR.”

The Case of the Casings

Another under-discussed forensic detail: shell casings.

Standard AR-platform rifles eject spent casings forcefully to the right and slightly forward.

On a roof…especially in daylight…those casings should have been easily recoverable. Yet reports of the number of casings recovered have been vague…inconsistent…and in some accounts lower than the number of rounds heard fired.

Why is that important? Because it opens two troubling doors:

1. Fewer Casings = Fewer Shots Fired: meaning some of what we “heard” was not gunfire but possibly controlled sound (a stretch…but in psychological ops…not impossible).

2. Casing Mismatch: if casings don’t match the rounds recovered from the scene or don’t match the wound profile…it screams manipulation of evidence.

In classic forensic ballistics…investigators check for striation patterns on recovered bullets and match them to the weapon’s barrel.

But if Trump was actually hit by a fragment…say…ricochet debris…there may be no bullet to match. And if there’s no bullet…there’s no neat tie-back to Crooks’ weapon. That means the entire “direct bullet graze” story rests on assumption.

The Angle That Doesn’t Add Up

Finally…trajectory.

Look at stage photos. Crooks’ position was elevated…firing downward. Trump was facing forward…ear exposed sideways.

A direct grazing strike on the outer ear rim from that angle is oddly inconsistent…unless Trump had his head cocked unnaturally at the moment the bullet passed.

Forensic trajectory analysts will tell you: grazing wounds have a line of travel that can be reconstructed.

The Butler wound…as photographed…doesn’t show the kind of tissue tear consistent with a downward…diagonal strike. It looks more lateral…more like something that skimmed across rather than descended.

Why This Matters

Sound…casings…trajectory.

Three technical lanes of forensics that rarely make it into the evening news. And yet these are the very disciplines that separate myth from math.

• If the sound doesn’t match…maybe the shooter narrative is incomplete.

• If the casings don’t match…maybe the weapon narrative is flawed.

• If the trajectory doesn’t match…maybe the wound narrative is exaggerated.

One anomaly can be explained away. Three together? That’s a forensic red flag waving in the wind.

Disclaimer:

By the way…let me be clear. I’m not claiming to be a forensic scientist…trauma surgeon…or counter-sniper. I don’t wear those uniforms…and I’m not here to pretend that I do.

Everything I’ve laid out in this section isn’t coming from my own expertise in ballistics or acoustics…it’s built on the shoulders of people who have spent their lives in those fields.

In particular…I leaned heavily on the analysis of a former FBI Counter-Terrorism expert…a man who also happened to be one of my instructors at the Naval Special Warfare Center over thirty years ago.

He’s spent a career dissecting the fine details of attacks…plots…and “near misses,” and His background…experience…knowledge…and wisdom…are one hell of a resource.

I drew from other…similar acquaintances…as well.

So while I’m just the messenger here…his fingerprints are all over this analysis. If you feel shaken by some of the points raised…give the credit…or the blame…to the men and women who taught me to question the official line when the evidence refuses to sit still.

When history looks back on Butler…the bloody ear photo may fade. But the forensics…the physics of sound…the math of casings…the geometry of a grazing wound…will still be there…waiting for someone brave enough to connect the dots.

And when that day comes…you’ll already know what the picture looks like.

Finally

The Butler shooting will go down in history. But not as the moment America almost lost a president. No…it may be remembered as the moment America was played.

Remember the photo:

Trump…bloodied but triumphant. That wasn’t an accident. That was a sales job…and it worked.

The question is…will we let it keep working?

Or will we rip the mask off…expose the theater…and show the country that behind the bloody fist and clenched jaw…there’s nothing but a man…a myth…and a machine built to keep us blind?

That’s the fight. And that’s why you’re here.

One of my jobs here at the Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter isn’t just to inform you…it’s to make you think. To crack open the rigid frames of reference you’ve been carrying around…shake them loose…and get you to look from a different angle. To consider what you may not have considered before. And then…decide for yourself.

I believe this issue of JHN does exactly that

I’ll be back soon.

Warmly,

-Jack

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