Best Evidence Rule

Dear BlueAnon: the man was shot at and a bullet fragment no doubt grazed his ear. He was bleeding from his ear. We all saw it, live on air.

Did he lose a chunk of his ear? No. Did he get hit? Yes. Could his ear have healed in terms of where he was grazed? Yes.

Stop with the… https://t.co/rwhnx5hUMI

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) July 28, 2024

The question remains: why don’t we have the best evidence?

I’m not an ER physician or even a ballistics expert. I don’t know what kind of damage a bullet is expected to do, what damage Trump suffered, what the injury indicates was the likely cause.

What we do know is solely from Trump (“I took a bullet for democracy!”) and Ronny Jackson. Who was not the attending physician, and has serious credibility problems of his own. Partly because he publicized utter bullshit about Trump’s medical/physical condition when Trump was POTUS. In fact, the only reliable medical report we got on Trump in those four years was a Covid diagnosis. Everything else was silence punctuated by rare releases of utter bullshit.

What residual injury, including possible concussive brain injury, might result from the injury Trump says he suffered? What injury, precisely, did he suffer? “We all saw it live” only means we heard gunfire, saw Trump go down, saw him come up with minor blood splatter…and that’s legitimately all we can say.

I’ve seen people lose more of their ear to cancer surgery. It’s cartilage without any real blood supply (Trump says the doctor told him ears bleed badly. I’ve seen people with traumatic (v. surgical) ear injuries; they don’t bleed that much. Trump is a most unreliable witness.), and it doesn’t restore itself. Trump shows no signs of injury a week after the shooting.  Why?

It’s not an unreasonable question. Neither is: why can’t we see the records?

Moss’s rhetorical questions are not unsound. But they are based on the video, and that’s not the best evidence. His answers are as speculative as anyone else’s. And that’s the problem. Someone has better evidence than we do. Trump is a candidate for the highest office in the land. Why is this evidence being withheld from the voters?

If Trump had dropped out of the race after the shooting, said “Fuck it, it’s not worth this!”, then it would be private information and all discussion of it just gossip. But is Trump lying about it? What are the injuries? What tests were performed? What did they reveal? The man wants to be POTUS. I think we have right to answers.