Former President Donald Trump was the target of an apparent assassination attempt Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally, days before he was to accept the Republican nomination for a third time. A barrage of gunfire set off panic, and a bloodied Trump, who said he was shot in the ear, was surrounded by Secret Service and hurried to his SUV as he pumped his fist in a show of defiance. Trump’s campaign said the presumptive GOP nominee was doing “fine” after the shooting, which he said pierced the upper part of his 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. Much bleeding took place,” he wrote on his social media site. Law enforcement officials told The Associated Press the assailant who opened fire at the rally was a 20-year-old man from Pennsylvania. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that hadn’t yet been publicly released. The FBI said during a press conference late Saturday that they were not prepared to release the identity of the shooter and had not yet identified a motive for the assassination attempt. However, the New York Post, citing sources, identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Cooks, a Pennsylvania resident who lived about 20 miles from the site of the attempted assassination. At least one attendee was dead and two spectators were critically injured, authorities said. The Secret Service said it killed the suspected shooter — who it said attacked from an elevated position outside the rally venue, a farm show in Butler, Pennsylvania — and that Trump was safe. The attack was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It drew new attention to concerns about political violence in a deeply polarized U.S. less than four months before the presidential election. And it could alter the tenor and security posture at the Republican National Convention, which will begin on Monday in Milwaukee. Trump’s campaign said the convention would proceed as planned. President Joe Biden, who is running against Trump, was briefed on the incident and spoke to Trump several hours after the shooting, the White House said. “There’s no place in America for this type of violence,” the president said in public remarks. “It’s sick. It’s sick.” Biden planned to return to Washington early, cutting short a weekend at his beach home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Many Republicans quickly blamed the violence on Biden and his allies, arguing that sustained attacks on Trump as a threat to democracy have created a toxic environment. They pointed in particular to a comment Biden made to donors on July 8, saying “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.” In the coming days, much of the focus will shift to the shooter and security lapses. The shooter was not an attendee at the rally and was killed by U.S. Secret Service agents, according to two officials who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. The officials said the shooter was engaged by members of the U.S. Secret Service counterassault team. The heavily armed tactical team travels everywhere with the president and major party nominees and is meant to confront any […]